UFC Ultimate Fighting Championship Fighters Under Paid?

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The UFC is one of the fastest growing and most popular sports organizations in the United States, and in the world. the UFC has probably been one of the fastest growing businesses of any kind, exponentially growing their fan base and revenue over the last half decade. This has been under the stewardship of President Dana White, who has been at the helm since the UFC was purchased by Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta in 2001. Dana White also has a 10% ownership share in Zuffa, LLC, the parent company of the UFC, making it very much in his own interests to raise revenues and profits. With the new ownership group, the UFC has worked hard to improve their image and clean up their act. Rules were revised and they have been sanctioned to stage events in the majority of states across the country. The UFC launched their own reality show on Spike TV in 2005, The Ultimate Fighter, which helped the organization reach the masses. However you feel about the sport of MMA and the UFC itself, this all seems fairly mundane. New ownership, updated standards and popular TV show leads to huge successes and huge profits. So what is the dirty little secret behind the success of UFC?The UFC Money Distribution Dilemma - Shortchanging the Fighters The dirty little secret is that Dana White and Zuffa are hording all of the massive profits, while their fighters are seeing only tiny fractions of the revenue generated. In 2007, the UFC sold approximately 4.9 million Pay-Per-Views. With 11 PPV events in that year, each UFC PPV averaged approximately 445,000 buys. Prices vary, but taking $39.95/PPV as the minimum, that's over $17.5 million generated on average from a UFC PPV. That's not even getting started with the live gate, generally in the range of several million dollars for a big event, the endorsement deals and sponsorships that line their Octagon (fighting cage) canvas and site fees that arenas pay out for the privilege of hosting an event and bringing all those people through the doors and into their casinos or concession booths. So is the UFC under paying its fighters?