There are many Mixed Martial Arts event organizing companies like Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), One Championship, Cage Warriors, Bellator MMA, Brave, etc. Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is the highest paying company currently.
The MMA fighters are on a Contract. These contracts are individual for all the fighters. Some say that a fighter earns when he wins the match which is wrong. A fighter is given Basic pay for every appearance in a fight which the fighter directly negotiates to the Company. The average basic pay of a fighter in 2020 is $75,000. The basic pay is more for fighters with more popularity. Nate Diaz against Michael Johnson got $20,000 as basic pay. Then after defeating McGregor, when he became popular got $250,000 to fight against Anthony Pettis.
The fighters are given a win bonus. The win bonus also depends upon the popularity of the fighter. MMA fighters also get sponsorship. Some companies and sponsors make deals for the duration of the sponsor like how many years to sponsor and how much to sponsor. The UFC fighters are sponsored by Reebok. Before that, the fighter would have their personal sponsors. But in the companies other than UFC fighters still have their personal sponsors. A few popular fighters get Pay Per View. Pay Per View is a small portion of the audience’s money that the fighter will get. Some fighters make millions from the pay per view. There are additional bonuses that are different for the events. In UFC the additional bonuses are The “Fight of The Night” and “Performance of The Night”. The two fighters who gave the most impressive fights of the card are the fight of the night and the best match of the night is the performer of the night.
There are bonuses for knockout and submission in all the companies except the UFC. And there is a high bonus for the knockout in the first round. The fighter will lose money through fines. There are fines for missing the weight i.e. weight is more or less compared to the weight division, brawls, etc. The highest-paid fight in 2020 was Khabib Nurmagomedov vs Justin Gaethje. Conor McGregor was the highest-paid MMA fighter until he got defeated by Khabib. Conor McGregor made millions with the Pay Per View and was the highest earned by any MMA fighter. The net worth of Alistair Overeem is $9.8 million, Michael Bisping is $7.1 million and Khabib Nurmagomedov made over 10 million in his recent fight. Conor McGregor is listed in the 2020 Forbes as the highest-paid athlete with a net worth of $48 million.
Related: Khabib Nurmagomedov’s Retirement
