Dana White teases possibility of increasing UFC fighter pay after Paramount deal

The UFC’s new $7.7 billion media rights deal with Paramount is a watershed moment for the mixed martial arts giant. But while most of the attention has been on accessibility to fans and the potential end of pay-per-view events, the fans may not be the only ones benefitting according to UFC president Dana White.

Fighter pay has been an area of conversation for years now in the UFC. In February, the UFC reached a settlement on a decade-long legal fight from a group of ex-UFC fighters accusing the fight promotion used “anticompetitive business practices” to keep its talent locked into low-paying contracts. Ultimately, the settlement granted a total of 1100 fighters eligibility to split $375 million in compensation.

Despite the settlement, criticisms of fighter compensation remain. But according to Dana White, fighters could be receiver a bigger portion of the pie from the fight promotion’s new TV deal with Paramount.

“This is going to be incredible for the fighters,” White told Front Office Sports on Tuesday. “We’ve talked about how this is good for the fans and good for the sport, but the fighters are also big beneficiaries here. We’ve looked to increase fighter pay whenever we could, even back in the beginning when we were losing money, and certainly will be doing so again.”

It’s unclear how the UFC would implement an increase in fighter pay. Currently, fighters freshly entering the UFC are compensated on a “win and show” model that sees fighters get paid $12,000 for taking part in the fight, and an additional $12,000 for winning their fight.

Maybe the UFC would simply raise starting rates for fighters freshly joining the promotion. Or, perhaps they will come up with an entirely different pay structure entirely, as the “win and show” model has been highly criticized for impacting losing fighters quite severely, which obviously isn’t the case in any other sport.

Additionally, fighters have long been additionally compensated by receiving percentage points on pay-per-view revenue. With UFC pay-per-views set to be a thing of that past, at least aside from the occasional one-off, will there be any kind of replacement compensation given to fighters fighting on high-profile fight cards?

There are clearly still a ton of questions surrounding how this deal will end up impact fighter pay in the UFC. And despite the fact that Dana White is saying that it will be a positive for fighters, there are still plenty who aren’t exactly buying what he is selling to fighters.

Most notably, former UFC welterweight champion George St. Pierre explained how he believes that the new deal will ultimately give fighters less leverage at the negotiation table because of the lack of pay-per-view points.

“It could be good for the UFC, as a promoter,” St. Pierre told Covers on Tuesday. “Terrible for the fighters, because when I was competing, I was able to have a great argument to negotiate on my contract. I could tell the UFC, ‘Hey, if you want me to do all the promotion, I want to become a partner. I want a piece of the pie to negotiate a part of the pay-per-view revenue. Because if I’m doing all the promotion, I’m helping you, but you need to help me. You need to make me a partner.’ So it might be a bad thing for the fighters in a way that they have less leverage.”