Randy Couture and Fedor Emelianenko Overestimate Their Worth

Mohapatra’s analysis ignores several other revenue streams such as rights to territories outside of North America, including Asia and Europe, merchandise sales, DVD sales, rebroadcast rights, a major sponsor (like Harley Davidson sponsors the UFC), etc. Randy may have also been including individual sponsorship deals that each fighter might get a bonus from for appearing in such a high profile fight.

That being said, $6-10 million for each of them does seem unrealistic. But then again, it serves Randy’s purposes to inflate the number.

Randy and Tito have absolutely NO IDEA about how to run an MMA promotion. They have no idea how much money is coming in and going out and that is why they should not be walking around screaming at the top of their lungs to anyone that will listen that they aren’t paid enough. Now its not all their fault, the UFC will not open their books to anyone and I know this. But to cause all of this trouble with an uneducated opinion is just downright irresponsible. I lose more and more respect for this guy every day this hold out goes on. I know everyone has their issues with Dana White, and most of them are valid, but the guy is smart and knows how to run this thing. And I actually feel sorry for him at times like these, when you are trying to explain to fighters and managers what is realistic and they will have none of it. I am a Fedor fan and I could care less about this fight anymore.
On a seperate front, it is laughable that the other culprit in this little fighter dust-up, Tito Ortiz, is quickly finding out that the money he was getting from Zuffa is more than he will get anywhere else. I predict he will be back in the Octagon by January of 2009. If Tom Attencio back-peddled any faster on his Sherdog interview this morning when asked about Ortiz he would have ran right off the screen. Randy and Tito are just looking more and more silly as these two soap operas play out.

One more thing that has not been included:
Vadim has made it clear that any fight with Fedor will be a co-promotion with M-1. So M-1 will also get a share of the money.

Fedor/M-1’s total take on the Affliction show, including their control over all international use of the footage, will end up being millions.

Pan, that is why none of that can be included. Vadim will likely insist on control over the international markets.

BJJDenver,

Randy said he thought it would do 700k buys.

I’m not exactly sure what Randy will accomplish by floating the $6-10 million figure. I would understand him coming out with a figure that’s too high, but to be completely out of the ballpark (actually probably in the adjacent state to said ballpark) makes him look out of touch with reality. That kind of money is just not there. This sort of talk leads me to believe the UFC won’t approach this seriously. The UFC has done well without Randy fighting. There’s no real reason for them to venture outside their normal business practices to accommodate Randy and/or Fedor.

I really thought he was just saying hypothetically what he thinks they should get, not what he’d accept. The figure makes no sense because it would take up all the profit by the time all the promoting costs were taken into account. People don’t realize that unlike boxing, the UFC pays for the fight and promotion side, and also has a full office of employees to pay salaries to.

Lesnar vs Kimbo would sell more than coutoure vs fedor.

UFC has a better chance of getting kimbo than fedor on their terms…

Fighters fight for a promoter and, on occasion, a network. Generally the network would be HBO, particularly for major fights. Anyhow, HBO has as much control as a fighter’s promoter, can approve or pick opponents and what not. For instance, they have the contract for Wladimir Klitschko. Given that, let’s say they decide that once he’s done with his mandatories, he has to fight either the WBA or WBC title holders in the heavyweight division, and that they will televise it via PPV. Wladimir’s promoters (in this case, himself through K2 Productions) sit down with Don King and Universum and have to hash out a contract, date, location, etc to fight.

Once all that is done, K2 Productions, Don King, Universum, or whoever has to work with HBO to develop an undercard (typically a young prospect in a 6 round fight, an eliminator, another title fight of lesser value) for the PPV, fighters are signed and its put together. HBO produces and televises the show for worldwide consumption, offering up rights to other station (ie Sky or Star Sports) for international coverage in return for money that they make an a small percentage of the purse. The fighters decide what they’ll be paid either straight from a purse or from a combination of purse and options from buys. Good example of that is John Ruiz/Roy Jones Jr. where Ruiz only made money on each buy exceeding 300,000 and had no guaranteed money.

Selling tickets is entirely up to the promoters of the fight (K2/whoever) and they make all the money on that, as well as creating sponsorships for the bout. The title belts are owned by the various sanctioning bodies, and they are paid a sum of money generally around the mid 5 figures each to sanction fights, provide officials, etc. Most fighters and promoters like to be associated with HBO because they have huge subscriber reach, pay shitloads of money, and get the best rate for PPV events around.

The downside for fans is that, theoretically, you get less megacards this way. Then again, its not as if there’s a whole lot of megacards in MMA anymore. Its just that people do a really good job in MMA of selling fights between fringe contenders as being more than they really are.