B/R Staff Roundtable: Has Dana White Overplayed His Hand with Fighters' Pay?

Amanda Nunes looked as dominant as ever in her historic defeat of Felicia Spencer at UFC 250 over the weekend, but when Conor McGregor shockingly retired in the immediate aftermath of the big show on Saturday night, the combat sports world was almost immediately forced into thinking about all the stuff going on outside the UFC's Octagon.

Now it looks like Dana White and company have a big problem on their hands, but are the issues causing that problem largely self-inflicted?

Within the last month, McGregor, Jon Jones, Jorge Masvidal and Henry Cejudo have all indicated they're walking away from what's supposed to be the top MMA promotional company in the world.

And all White can say about the matter is: "The amount of people gunning for me right now is insane."

Is that really what's going on here? Are people gunning for White?

Or has White simply overplayed his hand in terms of how the UFC treats its top stars?

Kelsey McCarson: Without seeing the cards dealt, it's hard to know whether White overplayed his hand.

Still, what White has managed to do is piss off four of his most important fighters. That's not a good look, and it's not going to help him make his company better.

Losing the single biggest draw in MMA history (McGregor), arguably the greatest UFC fighter ever (Jones), one of the most accomplished combat sports athletes on the planet (Cejudo) and the 2019 Fighter of the Year (Masvidal) in less than a month is a huge deal.

White should be looking at ways he can either fix what's broken within those four relationships or at least figure out how to never have this kind of thing happen again.

In short, I don't know whether the UFC specifically has a pay problem. It might. The comparison has often been made to boxers, who consistently make a lot more than their UFC counterparts, while boxing promoters and others also seem to be taking home plenty of money as well. 

What I do know for sure is that many UFC fighters, even some of the best and biggest names the sport has ever seen, don't feel valued or heard right now.

That needs to change soon, or the UFC could quickly find itself in some deep trouble.

Tom Taylor: Has Dana White overplayed his hand when it comes to fighter pay? I'm not sure. As bad as things look, maybe he's soundly in control. I don't have much of a mind for business.

What I do know is that many UFC fighters, who put their bodies through hell for our entertainment, seem to be tired of making chump change compared to most other athletes.

UFC fighters griping about their pay is nothing new. It's happened many, many times over the years. What is fairly unprecedented is having so many big-name fighters voicing their concerns all at once. Sean O'Malley. Henry Cejudo. Jon Jones. Jorge Masvidal. Maybe even Conor McGregor, if the widespread speculation that his retirement is a negotiation tactic is accurate. These aren't ornery undercard fighters complaining to a few thousand Instagram followers. These are legitimate MMA superstars at the height of their careers, and they're fed up, and they're screaming it to their millions of social media followers.

This could end up being a problem for the UFC.

During the coronavirus pandemic, it's hard enough for the promotion to schedule big matchups. Many of its promotion's biggest stars—like McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov—are stuck overseas. Others are unable to train properly because of gym closures and unwilling to accept fights as a result. Real stars are simply in short supply. The proof is last weekend's UFC 250 pay-per-view, which, while entertaining, was widely panned for its lack of big names.

Factor in these fighters railing against the UFC and the promotion's list of available stars gets even smaller.

Imagine O'Malley, Cejudo, Jones, Masvidal, McGregor and maybe a few others all decide to sit out until the UFC meets their demands. That is a big chunk of valuable talent unavailable to the promotion, and it's gonna hurt. If it keeps up, the UFC may have to open its bursting wallet and start sharing the wealth a little more. That is, if the promotion wants to fend off athlete unionization—gasp—for another few years.

So, while I can't say for sure whether Dana White has overplayed his hand, I am confident things could get very tricky for the promotion if he's not careful.

Lyle Fitzsimmons: As much as any executive in any sports organization, Dana White seems in charge of things.

Where some project well at press conferences, he seems legit when it comes to control of the UFC.

So, when it comes to fighter pay and overplaying his hand, my instinct is no.

Do the fighters who've been pining the loudest for cash—the likes of Jon Jones and Conor McGregor, and to a lesser extent Jorge Masvidal—deserve a bump for the boosted attention they've brought to the Octagon in the last few years? Sure. You can probably make a case for it.

But at the risk of making a complex situation far too simplistic, where are they going to go?

Unlike players with other major sports teams to play for or boxers with options to work with other promoters, the combat sports practitioners currently in conflict with White really have no other options when it comes to plying their trades in the primes of their careers.

Are there other promotions? Yes.

Do any of them have the bankroll to afford Jones, McGregor or Masvidal? No.

Without the option of a credible different organization, there aren't a lot of ways for those guys to get satisfaction and not simultaneously torpedo their careers.

The UFC would be worse without them, but there's enough of a roster for the short term that the checks would continue to clear and broadcasts would continue to draw ratings. And unless the three conflicts multiply exponentially or some other entity swoops in, White's probably not in danger just yet.

At least for the time being.

Scott Harris: Low fighter pay is by no means a new issue. In fact, I wrote an extensive feature on this very topic a few years back. That shameless plug was amazing, but the real point is that conditions are remarkably similar now to what they were then. A few fighters get rich, but it's nowhere near like it is in other sports, particularly among MMA's rank and file. And that disparity goes for sports like tennis and golf as much as football or basketball.

What's "new" here isn't the problem itself but the momentum of the conversation around it. There are some big names speaking who are very publicly standing up to a strong presence that doesn't much welcome challenges. If you notice, there appears to be fresh societal willingness to, shall we say, engage such presences in difficult conversations. The fighter pay issue has nothing to do with the wider and larger issues playing out on the world's largest stages, but at the same time, it's reasonable to point out that the UFC and these fighters live in the same universe as everyone else. Everywhere you look, it seems there's new urgency to dislodge the seemingly intractable.

For UFC fighters, is a lot of this born out of greed, as opposed to some civic high-mindedness? Sure! So what? Why should fighters be different from anyone else? Wanting more money, like we all do, doesn't make the underlying problem less valid.

Is now the time when fighters finally organize or get the changes they and the sport need to bring it to a new level as far as working conditions are concerned? Nobody knows. There's no telling whether it will be different this time. We'll have to wait and see on what, if anything, these developments signify. In the meantime, though, it certainly feels different, even if it's just the momentary reflection of a larger mindset.