Opinion: Condoning Pantoja's poverty -- in the wake of Alexandre Pantoja's revelation that he worked as a delivery driver well into his run as one of the world's top flyweights, Lev Pisarsky tackles the ever-controversial topic of fighter pay.
Right away, there was a desire by many fans, conscious or not, to change the subject. Some brought up the low pay of hometown fighters with records of 3-1 onprelims, or how a random guy on a small regional card was paid a few hundred bucks. This constantly happens with these discussions, and it's infuriatingly irrelevant. Pantoja has been one of the best fighters in the world for many years. The others are fringe fighters nowhere near the world's top 100 in their own weight class.
Lower-level athletes being paid peanuts is constant across every sport, even ones far more lucrative than MMA. Basketball players outside of the NBA and top European leagues make very little. Tennis players competing on the futures circuit get paid less than $100 for showing up and a few thousand if they win the entire tournament. The median salary for an arena football player is less than $40,000.
Fringe athletes making little is true everywhere. Elite athletes making little and having to supplement it through unskilled labor, however, is unique to MMA. Moreover, this obfuscation provides convenient cover for the UFC. Rather than keeping the focus on the promotion, one will commonly hear fans say “Sure, UFC pay is bad, but it's a lot better than the regionals!” These people are being convenient patsies for the UFC whether they realize it or not.
The only other promotion that has any effect on the UFC’s fighter pay is Bellator. Bellator, despite making a tiny 5% of the revenue that the UFC does, pays close enough that multiple world-class fighters and former UFC champions like
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