Jake Paul has noted that the UFC's reported 600 per cent increase in fighter pay isn't as impressive as it sounds when you take into account some other statistics.
The social media star, who is 5-0 as a professional boxer and quickly becoming one of the most influential voices in combat sports, took to Twitter to compare fighter pay increases to general improvements in the promotion's revenue, claiming that it paints a grim picture for athletes.
According to numbers estimated by the Huddle Up newsletter following last week's earnings report from the UFC's parent company Endeavor, their profits are up by as much as 6,200 per cent, while revenue is up 1,700 per cent since 2005, the year from when the promotion often cites their fighter pay as having gone up 600 per cent.
Paul drew attention to the article in a tweet to his 4.2million followers saying: "UFC always says its increased fighter pay 600 per cent since 2005. Per Huddle Up, UFC revenue is up 1,700 percent since '05 and PROFITS up by 6,200 per cent. 10x fighter pay!"
The issue of increased payment for fighters has been a hot topic in the sport since long before Paul first laced up gloves in 2018, but he has dragged it into the limelight after choosing to make it one of his main talking points to his tens of millions of followers across social media.
Endeavor boss Ari Emmanuel, who took over the UFC as part of a deal worth an estimated $4billion in 2016, was forced to dismiss Paul's concerns during the company's earnings call with investors last week. Paul had access to the call after making his own six-figure investment in the company back in January.
But it was Brandon Ross who raised the question for him, to which Emmanuel responded: "We’re investing in the business with Performance Institute, food, recovery - and now participation in Dapper Labs and NFTs in the kits.
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"So we think we’ve done very, very well. And as the revenue for the business increases has only benefited that business, and we’ve grown and the sport has grown and fighter pay has grown too, as I said, how much it’s gone up since 2005."
Pushed on concerns about how much faster the profits and revenue keep rising relative to the fighters' purses, Emmanuel was sterner in replying: "I’m not commenting on that. I think we’ve done very well as it relates to the pay for the fighters."
Paul, in his own way, has pushed to pay fighters more after beginning to promote his own fights last summer. For his bouts with Tyron Woodley, he accepted a pay cut to allow undercard combatants to earn what was, for many of them, career-high purses. He is also co-promoting Katie Taylor vs Amanda Serrano with Eddie Hearn, where both women for the first time in the sport's history will make seven-figures for their fight.
