What We Talk About When We Talk About UFC Fighter Pay
It probably tells us something that UFC president Dana White knew he hated ESPN's Outside the Lines segment on fighter pay well before he saw it. One gets the sense that he hated the topic more than the source or the approach, and the UFC's heavy-handed response to the story only confirms that this is a conversation the UFC would probably rather stop before it starts. ESPN tells us that many UFC fighters are practically despondent about their pay, even if it can't name any of them or produce any meaningful, verifiable financial figures that make the case. The piece questions Lorenzo Fertitta's claim that the UFC pays somewhere "in the neighborhood" of half its revenue to fighters, as most major sports leagues do, but it can't disprove it. And when ESPN's John Barr says he's spoken with "more than 20 current, former, and potential UFC fighters," the savvy viewer is right to stop and ask just what he means by "potential" UFC fig...