NFL players won\u2019t go back to the negotiating table for a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) until 2030 but rumors have already started swirling about many of the issues the league might bring up including a new 18 game season as well as financial compensation packages with broadcast rights deals only continuing to balloon higher and higher with each passing year.<\/p>\n
Because every athlete in the NFL is represented by the Player\u2019s Association, there are plenty of guaranteed rights made as part of that CBA, which even includes league minimum for salaries (currently $840,000 per season). It\u2019s not that different from other major sports leagues like the NBA or Major League Baseball but MMA fighters exist and compete under a much different model, especially when it comes to pay.<\/p>\n
That subject has become an even hotter topic lately, especially with ex-UFC fighters like Ronda Rousey taking direct aim at her former promotion and some athletes even going as far as announcing \u201cI\u2019m broke\u201d just moments after a knockout win. But for all the talk about how much fighters are making in MMA, ex-NFL player and current ESPN analyst Ryan Clark just doesn\u2019t see any massive improvements coming any time soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it changes as long as there\u2019s no governing bodies,\u201d Clark told MMA Fighting. \u201cIn each organization, there\u2019s a small group of individuals that make a large amount of the decisions. Whether it\u2019s the matches that are made, where the fights take place and the amount of money that is given to the individual fighters. Normally, that has to do with how much that fighter can make them.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo until that part of the process changes, I think it\u2019s going to be very difficult for fighters to change the payscale and winning and winning in big ways is still going to be paramount to their ability to feed their families.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a kill or be killed sport like MMA, fighters are often scratching and clawing for every dollar earned with the highest profile athletes earning much bigger paychecks than athletes who are just signing with a promotion like the UFC or the PFL for the first time.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not unusual \u2014 a similar model is employed in the sport of boxing \u2014 but it\u2019s vastly different from other professional sports. Clark points specifically to the standards NFL teams are required to follow as well as a revenue share split in the CBA that guarantees players at least get at least 50 percent paid back to them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t [exist in MMA] and it\u2019s also hard because whether you are the Cincinnati Bengals or you\u2019re the Kansas City Chiefs, when it comes to the CBA or it comes to negotiations, you\u2019re all seen the same,\u201d Clark explained. \u201cLet me use another analogy \u2014 there\u2019s a difference between the way the [Bengals owners] the Brown [family] spends money and the way the [Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry] Jones spends money. There\u2019s a difference but when it comes to the CBA, when it comes to the revenue share, those teams are seen the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes to the salary cap, the Cincinnati Bengals have all the opportunity and all the space to pay Joe Burrow the way that the Dallas Cowboys have the ability and space to pay Dak Prescott. Because they want that parity. That\u2019s not what mixed martial arts is.\u201d<\/p>\n
While winning is always what matters most, a fighter\u2019s ability to draw interest, sell tickets and get people to tune into their fights makes a difference when it comes to their overall value to a promotion.<\/p>\n
Conor McGregor is the biggest draw in the history of the sport and he\u2019s a former two-division UFC champion but he hasn\u2019t competed in five years with his last win coming all the way back in 2020 but that won\u2019t stop him from commanding a massive payday when he finally returns to action.<\/p>\n
Clark says the current model for how fighters achieve true success is going to breed even more competition among the athletes to grab onto that top spot rather than necessarily battling for everybody else underneath them.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs much as we call ourselves individual contractors, you truly are in mixed martial arts,\u201d Clark said. \u201cWhether it be the PFL or ONE Championship, whether it be the UFC so we\u2019ve had conversations about unions but you have to understand, if you go into that business, that\u2019s the business model, which I think creates \u2014 if we talk about the UFC for a little bit \u2014 it creates the Conor\u2019s and it creates the Sean O\u2019Malley\u2019s seeing the Conor\u2019s and saying \u2018I have to add that to my game.\u2019 I have to be that sort of person in order to make the amount of money, to have the level of success I want to have.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
That said, Clark acknowledges that fighters in general deserve better pay because the demands for that sport \u2014 not to mention a short shelf life much like NFL players \u2014 are so great.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played a game that\u2019s physical,\u201d Clark said. \u201cI\u2019m in awe of what mixed martial artists can do. I\u2019m in awe of their ability to be dedicated to a sport, not knowing what the end result can be. That sort of physical toll, emotional toll, mental toll on your body, knowing in their arena [that] not having my left up when I throw a jab and getting a head kick to the temple can change the trajectory of my career.<\/p>\n
\u201cI commend those guys and those women but I also understand why they would be fighting for a better pay scale based on what they have to sacrifice in order to be part of this sport.\u201d<\/p>\n
Competition also helps to fuel better wages and that\u2019s becoming more and more evident as fighters find options outside the UFC.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, PFL Pittsburgh goes down with former middleweight champion Johnny Eblen taking on ex-UFC fighter Bryan Battle in the main event. Eblen just recently inked a new deal to stay with PFL because the company stepped up to show him how much he was worth to them and ultimately he said \u201cit just made sense\u201d to stay there.<\/a><\/p>\n Jake Paul\u2019s Most Valuable Promotions has also shaken things up with the Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano card on May 16 where several athletes have praised the financial offers being paid to join that event. In other words, the more options, the better for the fighters.<\/p>\n \u201cClearly right now PFL is No. 2 to UFC but there has to be a breeding ground for other champions,\u201d Clark said. \u201cI think what the PFL is doing and trying to take that next step, in trying to become that rival and become that organization that is seen in somewhat the same way is huge.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NFL players won\u2019t go back to the negotiating table for a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) until 2030…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,1863,8417,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-569568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-pfl","14":"tag-pfl-news","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-ufc","17":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}