Matt Brown: “If anyone is responsible for paying the fighters, it is the fighters themselves”

The UFC is due in court in February to defend itself against allegations that it illegally suppressed fighters’ salaries for years by abusing its monopsony position in MMA. It’s a huge case that could lead to big changes, which might not be the worst thing given the state of the sport in the UFC’s stranglehold.

Yes, the UFC is doing well. It’s making more money than ever, and it continues to make more quarter after quarter. The fighters? Not so much. Salaries have been less than 20% of revenue for years, and the judge presiding over the upcoming antitrust case rejected a $335 million settlement because he felt it didn’t even come close to what the UFC owed the fighters.

Many fighters wanted the agreement to go through. For them, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, especially when the roof is controlled by a corporate-friendly judiciary. Given their profession, you would think that they would not mind a bloody fight to the death. But as former UFC fighter Matt Brown explains in a recent podcast, they have learned over decades that fighting the UFC for payment is a losing battle.

“If anyone is responsible for paying the fighters, it’s the fighters,” he said on MMA Fighting’s “Fighter vs. Writer.” “And I’m one of them, at least I used to be. For example, I never fought UFC because of my pay.”

“You’ve probably seen it on Instagram and Twitter, interviews where the fighters are endorsing the UFC. I’ve never heard of a company in my life where the employees – if you want to call us employees, even subcontractors – say, ‘Yeah, I shouldn’t be making more. You’re paying me exactly the right amount.’ That’s just unbelievable to me.”

“And look, I’ve always been happy with how the UFC has treated me,” Brown continued. “I like them. This isn’t a hate against them at all. But if I thought I would make more money by standing up for myself and arguing with them about pay, I would do that in a heartbeat.”

“I just wonder if people say that because we know how much power we have. For example, if you try to [UFC]It’s just going to reduce your chances of getting a higher salary. You’re now simply reducing your chances of getting a higher salary. So of course you’re publicly advocating for them, even though something in the back of your mind is telling you, “Damn, that’s not really what I want.”

Brown has been in the UFC for over 15 years and knows how the promotion works. He has experienced it first-hand and has obviously internalized it to some degree, because he repeated the new statement from UFC leadership that fighting in the promotion is “not a career, it’s an opportunity” … to make money elsewhere?

“If you’re an up-and-coming UFC or MMA fighter, you have to see the UFC for what it is,” Brown said. “It’s a stage where you can get your brand out there so you can make money in other ways. That’s where you’re going to make real money. Even Conor McGregor certainly could have retired from the money he made in the UFC, but outside of the UFC he probably made 10, 20 times more? That’s how you have to do it.”

“I hope that changes at some point,” he added. “An NFL player, for example, only has four years, but as long as he’s living below his means, which can happen pretty easily when you’re making millions of dollars a year, he can retire after only four years of playing. In the UFC, that’s just not the case.”

There’s no easy solution to the problem, because the UFC won’t pay more unless the market forces them to, and according to the impending antitrust lawsuit, they control the market so tightly that salaries are being suppressed. We wouldn’t blame the fighters, though, although we understand what Brown is saying.

It’s not enough to just accept what the UFC gives you, you have to smile and tap dance about it, or you’ll be labeled as “not someone you can work with.”