Did Regulators Deceive the Public About Brock Lesnar’s UFC Pay?

Welcome to our Community
Wanting to join the rest of our members? Feel free to Sign Up today.
Sign up

ErikMagraken

Posting Machine
Apr 9, 2015
778
2,553
Originally published here - Did Regulators Deceive the Public About Brock Lesnar’s UFC Pay?
________________________

Information recently revealed in the UFC anti trust lawsuit disclosed Brock Lesnar pay details. These details revealed pay far greater than reported previously by athletic commissions.

Is this a problem? Perhaps.

Athletic Commissions typically require bout agreements to be filed with them setting out the contracted pay for athletes. This serves 2 purposes. The first is to protect the fighter. Commissions are a safeguard to guarantee promoters pay fighters their contracted purse. The second purpose depends on if the athletic commission shares purse details with the public. Many do. When fight purses are published otherwise private contract details are revealed. This informs other fighters about market realities and helps them better gauge whether they are receiving fair pay for their work. It places them in a better informed future negotiation position.

Enter Brock Lesnar and details revealed in the anti trust lawsuit. Lesnar has competed in 8 UFC events during his career. According to information released by athletic commissions following these bouts Lesnar’s pay was reported as follows

As reported by BloodyElbow, UFC anti trust lawsuit documents reveal that Lesnar contracted to receive far more than the majority of the above paydays. Lesnar contracted to receive, via his company Deathclutch, $750,000 for bouts he was not a champion in and $1.65 million for bouts where he was the defending champion. While it is unclear which bouts this pay scale applied to this information does not square with any of the information revealed by the above athletic commissions.

The following contractual clauses were revealed:

For each and every Bout, in which Fighter participates where he is not recognized as a UFC Champion, by Zuffa, within thirty (30) days following the completion of each Bout, as contemplated in Section 7.1 (c) of the Promotional Agreement, Zuffa shall pay to DEATHCLUTCH, via bank wire or check, the amount of Three Hundred Seventy Five Thousand Dollars (US $375,000.00), less all permissible or required deductions and withholdings. Within sixty (60) days following the completion of each Bout, as contemplated in Section 7.1 (c) of the Promotional Agreement, Zuffa shall pay to DEATHCLUTCH, via bank wire or check, the additional amount of Three Hundred Seventy Five Thousand Dollars (US $375,000), less all permissible or required deductions and withholdings for a total combined payment of Seven Hundred Fifty Thousand Dollars (US $750,000.00).

“For each and every Bout, in which Fighter participates where he is recognized as a UFC Champion by Zuffa, within thirty (30) days following the completion of each Bout, as contemplated in Section 7.1 (a) of the Promotional Agreement Zuffa shall pay to DEATHCLUCTH, via bank wire or check, the amount of Eight Hundred Twelve Thousand Five Hundred Dollars (US $812,500.00), less permissible or required deductions and withholdings. Within sixty (60) days following the completion of each Bout, as contemplated in Section 7.1 (a) of the Promotional Agreement, Zuffa shall pay to DEATHCLUTCH, via bank wire or check, the additional amount of Eight Hundred Twelve Thousand Five Hundred Dollars (US $812,500.00), less all permissible or required deductions and withholdings, for a total combined payment of One Million Six Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars (US $1,625,000.000).

It is in fact speculated that with Pay Per View points Lesnar earned even far above these disclosed amounts.

Nevada requires that bout agreements be filed with the commission prior to a bout and that “An unarmed combatant must be paid in full according to his or her bout agreement “. California regulations require that “The original contract entered into between…promoters and boxers shall be placed on file with the commission at the time it is approved pursuant to Rule 222.” And further that ” No contract between a promoter and manager or boxer shall be enforced by the commission until all contracts between the promoter and the contestants for a particular match are filed with the commission and meet the requirements of these rules and the provisions of the code applicable to professional boxing. All contracts for an event shall be filed with the commission no later than the time periods specified in Rule 240.

Why would Athletic Commissions reveal anything lower than actual pay? Are they being deceived by promoters and fighters? Or are they allowing themselves to be used as tools to deceive the public? Whose interest is being served when an athletic commission either does not know how much a fighter is actually contracted to be paid or reveals a figure lower than the actual pay to the public?

This is an area deserving of regulatory scrutiny and reform. Fighters, who do not enjoy a union or other organized labor organization to protect their interests, rely on commissions who exists for their physical and financial protection. Regulators should not echo deceptive pay details to the public. It is a poor practice at best and at worst one that hits fighters in the pocketbook taking away one of their key protections in an already physically and financially harsh industry.
 

Sheepdog

Protecting America from excessive stool loitering
Dec 1, 2015
8,912
14,237
We've always known that disclosed pay didn't include PPV or 'bonus' payments.

It's weird that this has never been an issue before. Why are fake numbers made 'public'?

It's bizarre that a fighter officially contracted for 50,000 can then receive 200,000 in a brown paper bag after a fight and it is seen as no big deal.

I mean, it's not like the UFC was run by casino owners or anything.
 

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
27,507
29,834
We've always known that disclosed pay didn't include PPV or 'bonus' payments.

It's weird that this has never been an issue before. Why are fake numbers made 'public'?

It's bizarre that a fighter officially contracted for 50,000 can then receive 200,000 in a brown paper bag after a fight and it is seen as no big deal.

I mean, it's not like the UFC was run by casino owners or anything.
MMA is like MLB in the early 20th century...Dana White is Connie Mack?
 

SuperPig

Enjoy yourselves
Aug 7, 2015
30,979
51,737
It's really weird.

But it's an MMA thing and not just a UFC thing that needs to be examined. We saw Nate Diaz being paid 20/20 and that didn't tell the whole story. Coker was paying Mousasi and Thomson as low as $8k in disclosed money and people barely batted an eye.

It would be cool to know what's really being paid per fight even if it's being classified as something else. Then again, it's not my paycheck so I don't care that much.
 

ErikMagraken

Posting Machine
Apr 9, 2015
778
2,553
It's really weird.

But it's an MMA thing and not just a UFC thing that needs to be examined. We saw Nate Diaz being paid 20/20 and that didn't tell the whole story. Coker was paying Mousasi and Thomson as low as $8k in disclosed money and people barely batted an eye.

It would be cool to know what's really being paid per fight even if it's being classified as something else. Then again, it's not my paycheck so I don't care that much.
Agreed its an MMA thing. More than that its a regulator integrity thing. If juridictions opt to keep fighter pay a secret that's one thing. Publishing false numbers is quite another. That practice deceives the public and the market. It rigs contract negotiations in favour of promoters. AC's exist to protect fighters from heavy handed promoter tactics, not to help stack the deck against fighters. This practice needs to stop.
 

Sheepdog

Protecting America from excessive stool loitering
Dec 1, 2015
8,912
14,237
MMA is like MLB in the early 20th century...Dana White is Connie Mack?
I don't follow sports that were invented exclusively for girls (I'm not making a joke there, look it up), so forgive me for not understanding the reference.
 

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
27,507
29,834
I don't follow sports that were invented exclusively for girls (I'm not making a joke there, look it up), so forgive me for not understanding the reference.
players weren't unionized, owners ran the league with impunity (no commissioner)...basically how it is now. Connie Mack was notorious. Look it up.
 

aghof

an person
Apr 15, 2015
2,037
3,814
We've always known that disclosed pay didn't include PPV or 'bonus' payments.

It's weird that this has never been an issue before. Why are fake numbers made 'public'?

It's bizarre that a fighter officially contracted for 50,000 can then receive 200,000 in a brown paper bag after a fight and it is seen as no big deal.

I mean, it's not like the UFC was run by casino owners or anything.
I always felt, in addition to whatever shady accounting reasons, the 'backroom bonuses' served to basically placate the fighters, fooling them into thinking they were getting a bigger piece of the pie than they were.

You'd always see in any article about or mentioning low fighter pay a counter quote from this or that fighter about how Dana or Lorenzo gave him extra cash or a car or motorcycle or whatever and therefore the fighters have nothing to complain about.

...and in any forum thread on the topic, the 'parrot the party line' UFC fans (anyone who spent time at.. er, Del Taco, would remember some of those by screenname) would always bring up the backroom bonuses as if counting those would bring the ratio of fighter pay vs. total revenue up into the ballpark of unionized leagues like the NFL, MLB, etc.

Now, if every fighter made several times his reported pay like Brock, that might actually be the case, but I'd be surprised if the unreported bonuses add up to that much.
 
Last edited:

Sheepdog

Protecting America from excessive stool loitering
Dec 1, 2015
8,912
14,237
I always felt, in addition to whatever shady accounting reasons, the 'backroom bonuses' served to basically placate the fighters, fooling them into thinking they were getting a bigger piece of the pie than they were.

You'd always see in any article about or mentioning low fighter pay a counter quote from this or that fighter about how Dana or Lorenzo gave him extra cash or a car or motorcycle or whatever and therefore the fighters have nothing to complain about.

...and in any forum thread on the topic, the 'parrot the party line' UFC fans (anyone who spent time at.. er, Del Taco, would remember some of those by screenname) would always bring up the backroom bonuses as if counting those would bring the ratio of fighter pay vs. total revenue up into the ballpark of unionized leagues like the NFL, MLB, etc.

Now, if every fighter made several times his reported pay like Brock, that might actually be the case, but I'd be surprised if the unreported bonuses add up to that much.
Of course.

The reason Brock was getting paid much more than his disclosed pay was to keep it hidden from other fighters. The UFC is more concerned about fighter leverage than fan and media backlash about low pay, knowing that the latter doesn't actually hurt their bottom line.

Bonuses exist, but it's ridiculous to think they are common. A much publicized bonus was Shane Carwin (he claims they gave him 1 million) but that was when he fought Lesnar in what was then the 2nd biggest PPV of all time and he was only guaranteed $40,000! And people, laughably, used that as an example of the UFC's generosity.

But for every Carwin, there's many Nate Quarrys and Randy Coutures, who got exactly the peanuts their contracts stipulated they would get for a title fight.
 

Sheepdog

Protecting America from excessive stool loitering
Dec 1, 2015
8,912
14,237
players weren't unionized, owners ran the league with impunity (no commissioner)...basically how it is now. Connie Mack was notorious. Look it up.
'Connie Mack' sounds like an ironic nickname for McGregor when he's about to go full War Machine on some poor girl in a Dublin hotel room.
 

SuperPig

Enjoy yourselves
Aug 7, 2015
30,979
51,737
Randy Coutures
Bad example considering he claimed low pay and yada yada and then the UFC showed the cashed checks.

But Nate is a really good example and I'm inclined to believe that there are many more Quarry situations than Handy situations.
 

Sheepdog

Protecting America from excessive stool loitering
Dec 1, 2015
8,912
14,237
Bad example considering he claimed low pay and yada yada and then the UFC showed the cashed checks.

But Nate is a really good example and I'm inclined to believe that there are many more Quarry situations than Handy situations.
Fury muff. I thought Randy showed evidence, but it was so long ago.