There’s a rather revealing article on Forbes.com that delves into the history of Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta — majority owners of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) — and their rise to the top of the mixed martial arts circuit.
It’s laced with hyperbole; therefore, read with caution and consider these “facts” carefully:
Price the Fertittas paid for UFC in 2001: $2 million
Value today: $1 billion-plus
UFC estimated 2008 sales: $250 millionUFC is estimated to control 90% of the mixed martial arts industry.
UFC pay-per-view buys in 2001: 145,000
UFC pay-per-view buys in 2007: 5.1 million
The average UFC pay-per-view event draws 3 million male viewers between 18 and 49–often the same as a big college football GAME.
UFC employs 275 fighters.
Most make more than $100,000 a year.
Superstars make millions.
The average ticket price of a live UFC event in 2007: $250
That’s right, according to the feature the Fertittas say that they have turned down billion dollar offers for their promotion, which is rather remarkable if indeed accurate.
Check out the entire piece when you have some time.
29 Comments »
LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!!
Well yeah, if you’ve built something up, bought out your only (japanese) competition, and expanded to europe, why would you sell. MMA is in it’s early stages! But now with the emergence of other organizations willing to spend money to get exposure with top tier fighters, don’t be surprised if they do sell. It’s been long rumored that shane mcmahon is a huge mma fan and interested in buying the UFC. As long as he kept it straight mma, and I’m NOT a WWE fan, but the mcmahons no how to market to the 18-40 year old male.
NO way in hell will they sell. you said it yourself with all this new exposure there is gonna be even more money to make so why would they sell.
275 fighters? does that include WEC??
I was wondwering the same thing. 275 fghters in 5 weight classes. That’s a 55 fighters per weight class average. And all of them would be signed to exclusive contracts, so I would think that number includes WEC, or a lot of fighters are going broke signed to UFC contracts and not getting any fights.
making money like that we should get a few more fight nights
I’ve been pretty upset at times with Dana, but he, along with the Fertita’s have really done something incredible. And I’m sooo happy they’re not selling, especially to friggin’ private equity firms.
DAM!!!!!!!! Thats for all the Dana haters, there’s your proof of what he’s done for the sport.
Dana has done a lot for the sport and organization but there losing fighters right now because there not coming out of there pockets
Dude stick it somewhere, Dana is a business man. Don’t be mad at him because he let Big Tim and Randy go, your idols…
Dana is the man, he knows what he is doing.
i like him too, wow it feels like i just admitted to being a sylvia fan or something
Ok Dana has done a good job of promoting MMA, but we all know that the majority of people where sick with boxing and their money grabbing fight fixing ways, so MMA had a was revived at the right time.
That is why i pray that people like Gary Shaw and Elite Xc plummet to the ground. He is a former boxing promoter that help ruin boxing. and i actually believe he did the same thing with the Shamrock v.s cung le fight, just to spread the fights out to the new CBS cards. That way they have a rubber match like most do in boxing. I hope the UFC turns out to be like the NFL or NBA of MMA, that would be best for the fans and the purity of the sport. KEEP THE SNAKES OUT!
Gary Shaw is still doing boxing, April 12 Chad Dawson vs Glen Johnson was a robbery. Glen Johnson was rocking Dawson, the man is like in his 40’s, but was robbed because Dawson is the up and coming young fighter. Gary Shaw is Dawson’s promoter enough said.
just the fact that they paid $2 mil for the UFC is mind boggling to me. i wonder what Chuck was making back then. that was back when UFC was in its 30s (30-34, i think), so Chuck was fighting for them back then.
Just imagine where the jackass who sold UFC for $2 mil. is now… Probably the weird drunk dude at the bar telling everyone he used to own the UFC… or he’s already jumped.
lol That’s awesome.
The guy who sold the UFC is the guy who started the Yamma Pit Fighting org.
He also helped produce one of my favorites, BET’s Iron Ring
Well the Jackass that sold the UFC is doing Age in the cage at YAMMA Fighting. The fighting that will revolutionize MMA. Tongue firmly in Cheek
Its amazing to see the growth of the UFC. I think that the fertitas and Dana white have done a remarketable job, overall. I greatly appreciate all that Dana has done for the UFC, my beef with him is how he has run the company in the past year or so. I never had a problem with how he ran things prior to the UFC’s aquisition of PRIDE. Since then new organizations have been emerging and making noise and the industry has changed. My problem is that Dana hasn’t made the proper adjustments needed to operate in the new industry. The UFC is starting to sign a lot of international fighters, and Dana hasn’t always been the best at negotiating with foreign cultures. Also, is infelxability with fighter contracts is causing him to loose some Big Time fighters to lessor organizations. I think he has been trying too much to control foreign fighters and its backfiring in some cases. I think a fair compromise would be to make all his fighters fight exclusively in the UFC. Meaning they cant go compete in EliteXC, Strikeforce, Icon or any other USA based orgainzation that is in the same direct market as the UFC.
Also I would not let my fighters compete under DREAM because they are using most of the executives from PRIDE (a company that they spent a lot of $ buying out). However, occasionally cross promoting events would make the UFC a more desired destination for Foreign established fighters giving them a better chance to compete close to home, and would set up Big Fights fans can only dream about. If they did cross promote, I do not think it would hurt the UFC has much as Dana seems to think.
My beef with Dana is he needs to stop trying to control fighters lives. He should have no say over fighters competing in anything other than mma. He should have no control over a fighters decision to compete in:
Wrestling
Submission Grappling
sambo
the only thing the UFC should be able to block its fighters from is competing in mma in other organizations and maybe Kickboxing because its easier to get hurt doing that than it is any of the above mentioned ARTS.
Agreed, other mma shouldn’t be allowed, but competition that isn’t going to give other MMA organizations exposure shouldn’t be a problem. All in all happy with what he’s done(doing)
Yeah I agree John,Chuck Liddell Fought Guy Mezger and Rampage in pride but no one else can fight outside of the UFC but Chuck. Dana also said he would book Kimbo vs. Chuck if he had the chance. He clearly shows favoritism with some fighters. If he doesn’t want anyone competing outside of the UFC then he shouldn’t let Chuck do it.
well said. and i agee w/ thw wrestling, sambo, and sub grappling as long as there are injury clauses in the contract. if you get hurt and cant compete in an already signed for fight it could cause alot of problems.
These guys are always bragging about how much money their making, and how little they paid for the UFC.
“VIVA LAS VEGAS”!
So it made me think, how much money are other sports making and how much are they paying their athletes. I checked out FOrbes miami heat revenue, here’s what i saw.
Miami Heat Revenue $119 mil
Player Expenses $63 mil
Team Value $415 mil
NBA minimum wage 07-08 season: $427,163
UFC estimated 2008 sales: $250 million
Most make more than $100,000 a year.
Superstars make millions.
Value today: $1 billion-plus
UFC minimum wage : 3,000.00
Randy Couture said it best: “I’m Tired of Being Taken Advantage Of”
Most of the guy’s on the UFC roster should feel the same way.
UFC pay is fine. Like they said – guys like Rampage and Chuck make MILLIONS a year. If Chuck gets $1.5 million a fight (he got $2.5 million for his fight against Tito, but that did more PPVs than normal) then he makes $4.5 million a year from fights. That doesn’t include sponsors and shit.
Sports teams are completely different from the UFC.
The UFC is a growing business that was $44 million in the hole in 2004, and they are expanding worldwide. They should not be paying 50% of their revenue to fighters right now.
If the fighters don’t like it, there’s plenty of other people splashing money around so they’re free to go elsewhere (like big TIMMEH for example).
randy was one of the superstars who Was making millions, so how do you or he feel that he was being taken advantage of. i loved randy before all this went down. i would say randy said it worst when he said “i’m being taken advantage of”. he dug his own grave.
UFC pay is not fine. Its fine for chuck, rampage and the top 3-5 percent! or itw as fine maybe a few years ago but not now!a billion dollar company that only employs roughly “275 employees” and is outdoing boxing in PPV deserves to pay the “rest” a little more. Most billion dollar companies employ thousands of people not “275″ and still come out on top, so where is all the money going…you guessed it, FERTITTAS DANA and 2 or 3 ELITE FIGHTERS. BTW, i somehow doubt that “almost all the fighters” are making over 100k as mentioned..i mean how often do u see otherS fight that dont have the name LIDELL fighting constantly??? If UFC doesnt learn the art of cross promoting, then they will suffer at some point because fighters will leave for more money! (i think its slowly starting to happen now). SO i dont buy this ufc is paying “most”(not just lidell or rampage) of their employees fine…
GREAT JOB RANDY COUTURE on starting a movement that prob wont b appreciated by ur typical UFC fan for years to come. You will be thanked by future up and coming MMA fighters for breaking the mold and speaking up for the ones hat truly matter, the FIGHTERS!
it doesnt mean they have a billion dollars in the bank, just that the company and all its assests are probably worth that much. the fact that they didnt sell means that dana and the fertittas do care about their sport and not just the money. i think it will mean more money for fighters in the future. the new tuf guys are already seeing the divedends. 5g to win and 5g to sub or ko is alot of money compared to previuos seasons. they used to only get bonuses to ko or sub a fighter. so it does pay to go on this show wether you win or lose the contract.