UFC 278: Usman vs. Edwards 2

@Erison a large increase on **** all is often still **** all. You're talking about 7B gross. That's everything including merchandising. Gaming is about 155B  right now and is forecast to hit 550B thereabouts. MMA isn't just a small fish in terms of markets. It's phytoplankton. I know it probably doesn't feel that way because you're a fan, but it's still a very niche affair.

The issue is nobody is under any obligation to become an MMA fighter, and no MMA fighter is under any obligation to enter into a contractual agreement with the UFC or to sell their labour to it for either a fixed or variable rate. It's no different from anybody else choosing or not choosing any other job because they do or don't like the pay, the hours, the insurance, the benefits etc. They are choosing to enter into that agreement.

Now you can reeee about the fact that it's because they have monopoly on the market, which is ostensibly but not literally true, but you also need to ask yourself how that came to be, Have you considered the risks and capital sunk into the UFC as a venture? I'm old enough to remember when UFC was an absolute turd of a promotion. The reason UFC got to where it is is that its model is really, really ******* good at delivering a product people want to buy.

And yes, the market does determine the value of the job you do. Of course it does. Only a genuine dyed-in-the-wool economically illiterate ****lib would contend that it doesn't. The market is necessarily infallible because it is, as I have already explained, simply a reflection of free-choice liquidity allocation by consuming human beings--which you happen to number among. It is what people actually do, not what people say they will do. It is true. The ultimate standard of fidelity. At any point in time, you could choose to donate money you've won via gambling to a fighter of your choice. You choose not to, because you preference your own interests and little luxuries. That's fine, we all do. Every single week I waste money on useless ******** that is bad for my health and would very likely sponsor three kids somewhere in the developing world. You could simply refrain from consuming UFC at any point in time also. But you won't, because you don't really care. You don't even care enough to exercise moderate restraint.

But what you really mean when you say that UFC fighters aren't paid fairly is that you actually have no way of knowing whether this is true or it isn't, but you assume it as, and you want people other than yourself to foot the bill to make up the difference.  You're an OPM (other people's money)and basically the NIMBY of political commerce. This is standard leftist mentality; you believe capital just falls from the sky like mana from heaven. 'It's wrong, but I don't care enough to personally invest in fixing it, but I can say I do or would if I could and feel great about myself'. The problem with your entire generation broadly is that you're great at finding problems and as useless as marzipan *****s when it comes to fixing them to such an extent you operate as though finding problems is the solution. You're a total write-off and the best we can hope for is that the coming-ups are substantially less ******** and entitled than you are.

I don't know if the UFC should be paying out more than it does or not.They probably should be, but very likely so should Amazon, Dell, and millions of other concerns in existence, and none of them have to. They are paying the market rate. The higher the cost of production, the more you--the end user--will pay for whatever it was used to produce.

I can't ultimately know how bad it is, because I don't get to see their ins and outs. I don't know what I don't know. None of us do. What I do know is that they pay far above the market rate. I also know that the cost of promotion is high, and would be totally, completely and utterly unaffordable and out of reach to any MMA fighter--or even a conglomerate of them working collectively as free agents via a union of some kind.

* Edited at 08.18.2022, 7:02 PM ET *

@gliese58i that's pretty much where I'm at too. Of course I want them to get paid more. Who wouldn't? But not at the expense of my wallet or more importantly the quality of the product.

@danromanick spoken like a true accountant but you're probably not wrong.

@danromanick I don't believe the reported PPV numbers. I'm pretty sure they fudge them up the way everybody on the NYSE does with equity valuations to attract investors. A lot of it is going to be inflated. I don't really trust endeavour as a stock. I feel like they've hit a purple patch due to some freakonomics caused by the covid lockdown hurley burley.  Their EBITDA/earnings is impressive superficially but it breaks down when you consider they're calculating the uptick comparative to the ass******* they took in 2021. Thought about picking it up at the dip, ultimately thought I'd wind up catching a knife. Hasn't panned out that way but there's still something about it that doesn't smell right to me.

You're right though, they're not doing it tough.