Section · 5 pieces
Fighter Pay
Revenue share, the antitrust settlement, and what happens when a promoter owns the only major league.
Lead piece
The Number Everyone in the Business Already Knew
The Le v. Zuffa antitrust settlement confirmed in dollars what fighters had argued for years. The UFC's response was to go public, merge with WWE, and keep the contract structure intact.
- 02
Settled in the Morning, Sold Again in the Afternoon
The UFC resolved a decade of antitrust litigation and then commanded a record rights fee inside the same corporate transformation — the timing tells you everything about which number the business cared about.
- 03
What a Revenue Share Looks Like When a Union Negotiates It
A direct comparison of athlete revenue share in the UFC against the NBA and NFL's collective-bargaining figures, using each league's publicly reported or filed numbers with attribution and year. An explainer of why the gap exists structurally, not as polemic.
- 04
How a Commission Purse Sheet Actually Reads
Using published athletic commission purse disclosures — Nevada, California, New York — as primary documents, this piece explains what the numbers show and what they omit: disclosed purses versus total compensation, and why the sheet is incomplete by design.
- 05
The Discretionary Bonus Is Not a Benefit
Post-fight bonuses look like generosity. The math says otherwise.