Is $30 Million over 6 Fights Impossible to Reach?

One of the big topics of discussion today regarding Fedor Emelianenko's decline of the UFC's contract offer has been the terms of the agreement. According to the Carmichael Dave show, the UFC's offer was a $30 million/6 fight deal that included an immediate title shot, PPV revenue earnings, ability to wear and display M-1 Global logos, and an exemption to compete in Combat Sambo tournaments.

Jonathan Snowden's story proclaimed that these numbers were, in fact, misleading. The $30 million wasn't exactly a guarantee as the numbers were based on a projection of PPV numbers. Since Fedor isn't an unbelievable draw in the United States, we could come to the conclusion that these dollars would be much less that $5 million per fight.

There is something we're forgetting that was brought up to me via an email from Jeremy Lynch that I received involving the discussion as to whether $30 million was actually obtainable by Fedor Emelianenko. It turns out that the number isn't impossible to obtain, and it really isn't as insane as we are making it out to be.

The gist of what was said in our email conversation stems from the Randy Couture vs. UFC dispute involving Randy publicly disclosing his contract and receipts. Randy Couture vs. Tim Sylvia actually pulled 49,000 more PPV buys than the Randy Couture vs. Gabriel Gonzaga contest for obvious reasons, but when looking over the actual receipts and files that Couture provided during the dispute -- we can obtain some numbers that give us an idea of how much Couture made. The discussion that stems from this conversation is that we have to remember that UFC PPV revenue scale is actually tiered in regards to buyrates.

If we look back at documents from the Couture-UFC dispute, a tier structure for PPV was provided. It stated that 100,000 - 175,000 buys paid out $1 per buy to the fighter, 175,000 - 300,00 buys paid out $1.50, 300,000 - 330,000 paid out $2, and 330,000 to an undisclosed amount paid out $3. Interestingly enough, only 330,000 buys is the cutoff. There very well could have changed since that time.

But let's take a look at his payouts as a topic for discussion. It was disclosed by the UFC in response to Couture's dispute that he made $936,000 at 534,000 PPV buys in the match-up against Tim Sylvia. As I understand it, the payouts are calculated in each tier. So, Couture made (75,000 * $1) + (125,000 * $1.50) + (60,000 * $2) + (204,000 * $3) = ~$934,500 which is comparable to the $936,000 reported income. If you calculate the Gonzaga numbers, it's almost dead on the $787,000 reported income.

These numbers aren't even comparable to what a UFC 100 income would be, and we aren't even sure if the dollar rate per buy increases in tier-form if a fighter surpassed a million buys. For all we know, there may be a mark in which someone could receive $4 or $5 per buy. But for sake of the argument, let's keep a $3 buy here. For a million buys, a fighter with a tiered contract similar to Couture's contract would make roughly $2.32 million dollars. To the 300k mark, a fighter makes $322,500 + ((1,000,000 buys - 330,000 buys) * $3 a buy). If we stick with the $3 amount, 1.5 million buys easily clears $3.83 million dollars. This is JUST PPV revenue without the paid out guaranteed money or bonuses from knockout of the night or KO/Submission of the night. Not to mention, sponsorship money that Fedor gains. Of course, sponsorship money doesn't really factor into the original claim that $30 million is very difficult to obtain.

Is $30 million over 6 fights impossible to reach? It isn't, and it's reachable with huge successful wins by Fedor over UFC talent. If Lesnar vs. Fedor almost hit 1.8 - 2.0 million buys, he'd already be ahead of the $5 million a fight, but that's unlikely. I could definitely see a 1.5 million buys, and the same goes for a Couture match-up. If Fedor defeated both men spectacularly, you can bet his next few performances in the cage would at least be in the 800,000 - 1,000,000 range depending on who else was on the card. He might not actually make $30 million, but he'd get damn close that amount of money. It really depends on what his to-show and to-win bonuses would be. I'd be in the arena of $800k to $1m range personally, and he'd easily make a run at the $5 million a fight with that kind of guaranteed dough. It surely isn't the most impossible plateau to achieve.

Of course, this is some hypothetical analysis as we know Fedor is likely not going to sign with the UFC. It's something to think about if he somehow does make the move to the Octagon though.

UPDATE: Snowden is now reporting some different terms previously unknown. PPV revenue only came into play with extremely good buyrates, and his contract was for only 3 fights, not 6. With this information, it'd be tough to make the $30 million mark obviously, and the extremely good buyrates make me feel like this was a bad deal for Fedor over what the reported Strikeforce offer is looking like.