“There can be no doubt that the Ultimate Fighting Championship has been a successful business venture. Its story of going from a $2 million company in 2001 — and one that wasn’t even profitable until 2005 — to a $4 billion company in 2017 is staggering enough, but consider the fact that this growth occurred in a marketplace where virtually every other competing organization struggled to stay in the black. The UFC’s rise has been a remarkable achievement on paper.
Yet in spite of the evidence of the business savvy working behind the curtains, the powers that be still continue a puzzling practice: incentivizing fighters through win bonuses. For most fighters, their purse consists of “show money,” which is then doubled if they win. In theory, this sounds reasonable, but reality paints a different picture…”
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