A new study has found that on average Premier League players earn almost 20 times more than UFC fighters each year.
Fighter pay in the UFC is a controversial topic with some of the promotion's best fighters publicly speaking out over pay issues in recent years.
Most UFC fighters are not guaranteed a salary, instead being paid separate show and win purses which can drastically alter their earnings depending on the outcomes of their bouts.
After the Nevada State Athletic Commission stopped releasing official fighter purses in 2020, there has been less clarity on how much UFC fighters make.
But a study by Parimatch recently investigated the salaries of the top 100 earning UFC fighters and compared them against other top-earning athletes in other major sports from 2015-2021.
Within the study's criteria, UFC fighters are paid an average salary of £401,000 a year whilst players in the Premier League earn a huge £7.8million a year.
At £267,000, UFC fighters earn more than Premier League players per match as the footballers take home £205,000.
But fighters take part in a match at an average of 1.5 times a year compared to Premier League players being involved in 38 matches a year, resulting in a vast difference in their annual salaries.
UFC fighters purses have increased 15 per cent annually on average over the past five years, more than other sports league such as the Premier League, NBA and NFL.
This is evidenced by UFC star Conor McGregor, who earned £1.4 million for three fights in 2015, pocketing almost double that figure for one fight in 2020.
Former two-weight champion McGregor topped Forbes highest-paid athlete list in May of last year, breezing past Manchester United forward Cristiano Ronaldo to earn £133million.
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But just £16 million of McGregor's earnings came from his UFC 257 loss to Dustin Poirier, with a whopping £111million coming from the sale of his whiskey brand, Proper 12.
After founding the brand in 2018, McGregor sold his majority stake in Proper 12 to Proximo Spirits which largely contributed to his No.1 position on the list.
Parimatch's study also shows that in 2020, now-retired UFC champion Khabib Nurmagomedov was the highest-paid fighter in the promotion earning £4.6million.
Other than Nurmagomedov and McGregor - who made £2.3 million for his lone fight that year - just one other fighter made seven figures as veteran Junior dos Santos earned £1.2million.
That figure was trumped by Premier League stars Gareth Bale and Kevin De Bruyne who earned £33.1million and £21.4million for that year.
