It’s time for the UFC to restructure the Pay Per View percentage contracts for main event fighters. They began as a good faith way to reward fighters when the company does well, but these deals are unresponsive to the UFC’s needs, and they are unresponsive to the needs of the sport.
The last year of Anderson Silva’s career provides a good example of why the Pay Per View percentage deals do not make sense for the UFC. After signing a deal with a Pay Per View bonus, Anderson Silva headlined UFC 90, and got a terrible payday because the buyrate was so poor. He then took an extended break, and agreed to fight Thales Leites only because he was told that either St. Pierre or Chuck Liddell would be on the card as well. The show broke the 600,000 buy mark, and Silva made a killing.
Silva’s next Pay Per View fight was against Forrest Griffin in a marquee match on a huge show with two main events. The pay was great, and now Silva is playing the game again. He refused to fight on the UK card, and while people think he is ducking Henderson and Marquardt, I think his real goal is to get on a stacked New Year’s card for the buyrate.
We saw this last year too, when a number of fighters turned down fights toward the end of the year to try to get on the New Year’s show. As more and more fighters sign these deals, we are going to see wild swings in card quality. A show like UFC 100 will attract all the top stars, but the result is shows like UFC 103 with no Pay Per View draws in sight.
The PPV bonus scheme is also unresponsive to the needs of the sport. Quinton Jackson actually turned down a light heavyweight title shot because he rightly believed that he would make more money against Rashad Evans following a season on The Ultimate Fighter. We should be seeing Quinton Jackson vs. Lyoto Machida next month, but instead we’re seeing a fight that almost nobody believes will be competitive. Similarly, Anderson Silva wouldn’t be making ludicrous demands to fight heavyweights if he made almost as much money to fight guys in his weight class.
If fans want consistently strong shows and champions willing to fight legitimate contenders regardless of their drawing power, the UFC needs to restructure their contracts for top stars so that the base pay is more than 75 to 80 percent of their pay on an average Pay Per View. According to Loretta Hunt, Randy Couture’s contract pays him a base 6 times higher than his old base per fight combined with a Pay Per View percentage. If this is correct, is it any wonder why they were able to get a huge superstar like Randy Couture to fight on Spike TV against a guy like Brandon Vera on short notice? A large part of it is Randy’s character in comparison with other stars, but at the same time money is a major factor for everyone, and under his new deal the fight made sense for him.
For a number of top UFC stars, their Pay Per View percentage can account for upwards of 60 to 80 percent of their pay on big shows. As a result, it’s only rational for a guy like Silva to hold out for a slot on a show that could do a million buys rather than a Spike TV show or a show that will pull 400,000 buys.
Finally, the key to the business of MMA is making new stars as old ones fade. This becomes impossible if the top names won’t fight any young stars because the Pay Per View money is better against established draws.
I’m obviously not advocating for the UFC to pay fighters less. I’m advocating for a salary structure that incentivizes fighters to fight all comers on an active schedule instead of cherry-picking opponents and fight cards. I believe this change will be better for the UFC, the fighters, and the fans in the long run.