Andrew Schulz Asks Joe Rogan About UFC Fighter Pay

I have a question about MMA for you. Why do we keep hearing about the underpaying stuff? Well, right now in particular, there's probably less money because the fighters have to... There's no gate. There's no live gate. Yeah, there's no live gate. And that's an extreme amount of money. But there's also fighters that agreed to certain deals. They agreed to like an eight fight deal, X amount per fight. And then they become more popular and then they want to renegotiate their deal. And the UFC is like, look, we're just trying to stay open. We're not going to renegotiate anything. So they're like, take it or you can leave it, but this is what it is. I think it's a matter of that. But looking at it from the fighter's perspective, fighters would be certainly better off if there was more competition. That's always how it works. So whether it's Bellator or 1FC or all these different companies, the more of those there are, the more World Series of Fighting, the more professional fighting league, whatever the fuck it's called now, the more those rise, the better it is for everyone. It's just how it is. It's like if there's only improv and then you get banned from the improv, you're fucked. But if you got funny bones, if you got some theaters, if you got music. It's exactly like that. I've seen that happen before with people. I've seen that happen with comedy clubs and I've seen that happen with fighting too. You get banned from a big organization and then you're fucked, man. It's not a monopoly in that you do have choices, but there's one clear top of the food chain choice, but it's because they do it the best. They're also the only ones that are having fights during this quarantine. The only people that are putting on any live sporting event. But they're also a part of a company in WME that's hurting and needs it. Really bad. So there's not a lot of money to throw around. To keep the doors open, to keep people employed, a lot of money is missing. All these shows got canceled. There's all these audience members that aren't going to be there buying tickets. So it's tricky, man. So this is why I think they're complaining about fighter pay. I think they should get paid more. I think everybody should get paid more. It's a crazy way to make a living. I think you should get the most amount of money you can possibly get. But it's also a business. And I think that if they are struggling as much as I think they are, I don't talk finances with them, but I know that WME people own it. They're hurt, bad. They're laying people off. Most businesses are hurting. It's all the entertainment businesses fucked. Live Nation's fucked. All these people are fucked. So what do they do? That's what I think. When it comes to me as a human that likes fighting, I know how fucking dangerous that shit is. You should get paid an incredibly generous amount of money to step into a cage fight for millions of people to see. Yeah, it is interesting because you have this situation where the quality of the fights is undeniably better because it's not in the free market. You have people that are really good at picking out fights. And for the most part, I say this as a boxing fan. So I grew up in boxing where there are tons of different divisions or tons of different companies, WBC, WBO, all these different promoters. And sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. But it's a mess. And then sometimes what happens is you have guys who are really boring fighters, but they get a position where they have the belt and then it actually hurts the sport in a way. But they earned it and they deserve it. So as a sportsman, they deserve to have it. A lot of people, I love Floyd Mayweather. I think he's the best fighter in the history of fighting. I think he's actually one of the greatest people at their job ever. I think he's Michael Jordan of boxing. He's without a doubt one of the greatest boxers, if not the greatest boxer that has ever lived. He's unbelievable. 50 and 0. But for average people, for me, I loved it. But for average people, I thought it was boring. So he needed the antics. Yeah. He needed to get people angry at him. And it worked. But the thing is with the UFC is I'll watch guys I don't fucking know and I'll enjoy it. And I feel like I don't know if that's just because of the sport, but also because of the way that they're matching the fighters. And it's not specifically, hey, you're ranked here, you're ranked here. We have to match you. Part of it is you're ranked here, you're ranked here, but also your styles would make something interesting. So I wonder if it's correct. No. Do you think it's better to not be completely free market? Do you think it's better to have the fights for the quality of the sport? If you're a fan, it's certainly better for you if the fighters get, if they all get together in one organization and then that organization makes them fight each other. That way there's not as many dream match ups you never get to see. Like one of the things that everybody got upset was by the time Floyd fought Manny Pacquiao, it was like past Manny's prime and Manny had a bum shoulder and all these different things. We would have liked to see that fight five years earlier. And in the UFC, that fight gets made easily. Yeah, it gets made. But it gets the situation where a guy like John Jones says, hey, I've got a contract for light heavyweight fights, but you know, would he want to give me a fight Francis and Ghana because I want a lot of fucking money because that guy's terrifying. And they say, well, you get what you're paid in your contract. That's what you get. And he's like, well, I'm not fighting then. And they go, okay. It is interesting. See that's one of those situations where I don't know who's right or who's wrong because I don't know how much money they would make for that. If there's no audience, let's say the Francis and Ghana fights a big fight and it gets like 500,000 pay per view, 600, 700,000 pay per view. That's a lot of pay per views. But a live gate? How much in the hole are they? How much money in the hole are they? How hard is it to make money right now? How much can you afford? How much do they make? I don't know these answers. How much do they make for a pay per viewer? 700,000 buys, a million buys. How much do they make? How much, which the overhead? I mean, I don't know. It's less, but it's not, I mean, it has to be less because you're not maintaining these venues. The venue is so much smaller. You have to pay way less people. That being said, the ticket prices, like the live gate. Live gate's big. 20,000 people, 18,000 people all spending on average, $150 a ticket. And on top of that, there's merch. There's all sorts of shit. I'm sure they probably get some sort of a piece of all that stuff. Yeah. So there's a lot of money. And then there's also, they had to operate, they didn't fire anybody. It's one thing about the UFC. They would not fire people. So they stayed open, wouldn't fire anybody while they were going on for months just paying people, trying to figure out how to put this together and make fights happen. They tried to do that one at the Indian place, Tai Chi Palace in La Morre, California. They got real close to doing that. Then the fucking governor got ahold of the head of Disney and Eisner and they called Dana White and they told the pull out. Pull out! Okay. So they back out of that. And then two weeks later, Florida's like, come on in. So then we do one in Florida with no audience. And then finally they're allowing us to do them at the Apex Center in Vegas. I think right now it's a triage. Right now they're trying to stop the bleeding and they're trying to pass back up the sport. Like WME and the UFC. The UFC is operating with full costs for months without any money coming in at all. So you have to think that. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It's like WME, I think paid $4 billion or something for them or something like that. A little more than that. So they have this giant monthly nut they have to cover every month. And people I guess don't realize is like an agency makes money off of the commission of their clients. And if their clients can't work because of Corona, the agency has no revenue coming in. None. Zero. I guess there's some TV shows getting made, but like still they're not, they're not doing production on like films or anything like that. No. Yeah, it is interesting. Well, they're starting to do films next week. They are. It's coming back. What was your thoughts on it? Till somebody gets sick. And then you're liable. That's the tricky thing. It's like, they don't want to God forbid somebody ends up one of these like an NBA coaches who's old. God forbid Greg Popovich who's fucking 70. Oh yeah. Gets Corona death. It is. And now you want to be the NBA commissioner that killed Greg Popovich. Oh my God. Or be a UFC promoter that you, a fighter gets sick, goes home and kills his mom who works with him. You know, maybe your mom helps cook for you. Your mom gets sick. Maybe your mom's helping you in camp. Your mom gets sick and dies from Corona because they had the fights. I don't think that's going to happen. I think particularly now when you're hearing these reports of the cases diminishing, the viral load that they're finding like in Italy is so small that's barely detectable. Yeah. You know, the hope is that same shit happens here as it gets hot out.