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Jorge Masvidal speaks up about his recent demands towards the UFC.
A few days ago, Jorge Masvidal joined Jon Jones in demanding to be released from the UFC. Similar to “Bones,” the reigning “BMF” champion has grievances over the money he’s making.
UFC president Dana White already responded by mentioning how things are in the NFL, which “Gamebred” also used as a jump-off point for his retort. On Saturday amid UFC 250, Masvidal got on SportsCenter to speak with Kenny Mayne and clarify his stand.
“So I’m asking for a bigger revenue share of what we bring in you know,” Masvidal said. “I got a lot of questions and one of them is NBA, NHL, Baseball, they make I think 40 percent of what the organization brings in. Football I think it is 47 percent. Mine is like 18 percent.”
“So I have these questions, like why so much,” he contiued. “Does putting the cage up cost so much? Is it the setup? But what is it that is so much? And I want these questions answered. So I thought what better place to come then on here and ask for these questions you know.”
Masvidal clarified that a salary bump is not what he wants. Rather, he wishes to get a piece of the massive revenue that the UFC is making per year.
“None of us, no fighter ever has gotten a share off the gate, or the hotdog sales, or the piña coladas that they sell. We don’t get any of that,” he said.
“We don’t get a percentage of the gate, we don’t get a percentage of the t-shirts and none of that sold. So what does it matter to us? Why do I have to do my job at a lesser rate? Now, if they were giving us 50 percent shares or 40 percent, or any of that stuff, it’ll be a different ball game. Yeah, we could come to different terms like how they do it in the NBA and other sports because of the things that are at hand.
“Most of us will be happy if it was 30 percent coming back over, but it’s not even that. It’s less than 20 percent, and I’m having these questions,” Masvidal added.
Masvidal feels he now has a big enough voice to speak up about certain issues, which he says he’s doing for every fighter on the roster.
“If I’m bringing in XYZ dollars, giving me 18 percent of those dollars that I bring in, it’s not fair, man,” he said. “I’m not even getting a third of what I bring in. I don’t think that’s fair. I don’t think that’s fair for any fighter. I’m speaking for everybody, even the guys that I dislike and we’ve had problems.
“I’m not asking to get more money. I’m just asking to get a bigger revenue of what I bring in. And I think that’s fair for everybody across the board, you know?”
The anti-trust lawsuit has revealed a lot of the finances within the organization, and the UFC themselves estimate that they pay fighters just around 17% of the revenue.
Masvidal was originally lined up to fight Kamaru Usman for the UFC welterweight title, until it was called off for no concrete reason. According Dana White, they have “something else interesting” planned, which he also didn’t specify.