The sad story this week of Carla Esparza, the former UFC women?s strawweight champion, being forced to sell a motorcycle she won on ?The Ultimate Fighter? is a harsh reminder that for all the progress that has been made, mixed martial arts still hasn?t fully hit the mainstream, a status that provides better protection for labor.
There are a lot of fighters who do well financially in the UFC; there are a lot of others who do not. And outside of the UFC, a very slim percentage of fighters can make a decent living. It?s a problem beyond income.
Many fighters don?t have healthcare for themselves or their families. They don?t have retirement plans. They don?t get life insurance policies. They don?t have many of the things that many American workers take for granted. Clearly, some sort of union or association is needed to help them in that regard. But if the MMA fighters who are beginning to push back and speak out for their rights believe that being covered by the Muhammad Ali Act is going to substantially change their situations, well, there?s a bridge in Brooklyn they can probably get on the cheap.
The Ali Act is well-intentioned legislation that covers professional boxers. While it has made some small but important advances for them, it is highly ineffective and does little overall to benefit the boxers it was written to support.
Take the sad case of former world champion Chris Algieri, who was repeatedly stymied in his bid to get full disclosure of his promoter?s revenues, one of the key tenets of the Ali Act. Boxing promoters are required to disclose all sources of revenue they expect to receive from a fight card to the boxers appearing on it. It is designed to give the boxer and his/her representative(s) more information to better negotiate contracts.
If the boxer knows that the promoter expects to generate $10 million from a fight, a purse offer of $25,000 doesn?t look so hot. But if the promoter?s expected revenues for a show are estimated at $100,000, it?s probably unfair to ask for $75,000.
Prior to a fight earlier this year, Algieri repeatedly asked his promoter, Joe DeGuardia, for such information under the terms of the Ali Act, but DeGuardia refused to tell him until the last minute. He gave Algieri the information at the weigh-in, hours before the fight, and after Algieri had put himself through training camp. In doing so, DeGuardia followed the letter of the law.
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Chris Algieri (Getty)
Algieri, having gone through the rigors and expense of training camp, couldn?t afford to walk away. Boxers, like MMA fighters, are independent contractors who aren?t paid if they don?t fight.
That?s one of only many reasons why the Ali Act is hardly a savior for fighters.
It was sad Thursday watching a fight-related U.S. House of Representatives sub-committee hearing of the Energy and Commerce Committee. This was an informational session designed to build support for extending the Ali Act to MMA. As it stands, the Ali Act applies only to boxing and to no other form of combat sports.
The elected officials, as they sadly often are, were woefully unprepared to ask proper questions, and they frequently failed to ask pertinent follow-ups.
There were half-truths and partial truths left out there, and the overall impression created was one that didn?t inspire confidence that this committee would prove to be of much assistance to the fighters in their quest.
The one helpful, and scary, bit of information came from Dr. Ann McKee, a professor of neurology and pathology at Boston University. McKee, who has done ground-breaking research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), said during her testimony that she studied 291 brains of athletes who were between ages 18 and 98 in the past eight years and found that 218 of them had CTE. That is almost exactly three out of every four.
?There has been a primary focus on the role of concussions in the development of CTE ? even the movie about CTE was named ?Concussion? ? yet all of our research to date points to the fact that CTE is associated with prolonged exposure to repetitive small impacts, the sub-concussive hits that are asymptomatic,? McKee said during her opening statement to the committee.
?In sports like MMA, the risk for CTE is not directly related to the number of concussions. Rather, the risk for CTE is related to the cumulative exposure to sub-concussions that occur with every blow to the head.
?The longer you play contact sports, the higher your exposure to repetitive head impacts, and the higher the risk for CTE.?
That is a scary, particularly since symptoms of CTE don?t become present immediately and often begin after an athlete?s career has ended. And that should circle back to what is most important for fighters going forward. Healthcare insurance plans are critically important for them, as is a pension or some form of retirement plan.
It?s the rare MMA fighter who earns enough to finish a career averaging $1 million a year. But for the sake of this discussion, let?s say a fighter has a 12-year career (which is way longer than average) and averages $1 million annually. That?s $12 million in a career. If he/she retires from fighting at, say, 38, he/she must support himself/herself for at least an average of another 38 years. (In 2016, the average life expectancy for an American man is 76.59. For an American woman, it is 79.)
If that fighter has been injured and unable to find another job, it makes it tough. And there is family, children, college and all sorts of things fighters must do ? that all of us must do ? long after the large paychecks stop coming.
And that?s just for those doing the best.
A union or an association would greatly benefit not just MMA fighters, but all fighters.
During the hearing, UFC Hall of Famer Randy Couture testified about the financial hardships MMA fighters face. He pointed out the vast disparity in income potential between MMA fighters and boxer Floyd Mayweather, who earned nearly $300 million from his 2015 bout with Manny Pacquiao alone.
But Mayweather is an extreme outlier; there was a boxer on the Mayweather-Pacquiao undercard who made $1,500 for his fight. That fighter faced the same risks that Mayweather and Pacquiao did in the ring, but he made far less for his trouble.
So it?s not as if boxers are living high off the hog, happily protected by the Ali Act. A tiny percentage of boxers earn an extraordinarily high percentage of all boxer income in a given year.
It?s clear that fighters in all disciplines need some sort of assistance. A collective-bargaining agreement, in which they could negotiate things like health care, minimum pay and retirement plans, would be a life-saver, literally, for many of them. But having some bureaucracy create an independent rating system that determines who gets title shots, as was discussed during the Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, would have minimal direct impact on the fighters? lives.
Fighters need to take this issue seriously. The UFC is often compared to Major League Soccer in terms of revenue. MLS has a CBA with its players. The Washington Post reported that while the average MLS salary is $315,000, the median figure is $117,000. According to the Post story, half of D.C. United?s roster makes less than $100,000.
The UFC represents the highest level of MMA and presents the greatest earning potential for fighters. There is no data available about the average UFC fighter?s salary, so it?s impossible to know the median salary. Bellator is the sport?s No. 2 promotion, and most of its fighters make a fraction of what their UFC counterparts make.
Per the CBA that went into effect on Feb. 1, 2015, MLS players have a 401(k) and the league agrees to contribute 3.75 percent of the player?s annual salary to it. MLS players also receive medical, dental and life insurance, as well as long-term disability insurance. Those are the type of benefits MMA fighters should be seeking.
If getting covered by the Ali Act can help improve the lot of MMA fighters, then by all means, go for it. But if the bill isn?t dramatically rewritten, it?s not going to make the kind of life-altering changes those pushing for it hope it will.
It?s best to focus on organizing and trying to reach a deal in which fighters are classified as employees instead of independent contractors and where they can count on the basic benefits most American workers take for granted.
