Rocko604
Sports will break your heart.
Listened to this on Luke Thomas earlier this week as well.
In terms of DAZN, we have no idea if their business model is sustainable. People used to freak out about how cheap the UFC was when Affliction started paying fighters a ton of money. Sure enough, they were soon out of the fight business. I have my doubts long-term. Guys like Canelo & Wilder are probably considered loss leaders for DAZN so that they can bring eyeballs onto their product and hopefully stick around. I really, really hope DAZN works as a platform but again, I have my doubts.
As for the ESPN/UFC thing - if the UFC is making more money, the fighters will make more money. While the majority of fans online who follow their bleeding heart SJW leader Ariel Helwani are idiots, the agents that represent these guys aren't. The pay keeps going up and will continue to go up. Obviously the owners of the company will make even more, but there's a reason why guys generally still want to go to the UFC. The money and stability is there. But yeah people will keep ripping on the UFC for fighter pay while not saying a thing when Bellator is paying 1500 bucks for guys to fight on their undercard every week.
Assuming the UFC keeps pencilling about 15% of their revenue (which is rumoured) towards fighter pay, then yes, fighter pay will rise with that. I'm just wondering if they're at a point to say f*** it, and slash it to 5-7%, simply because they could. As you said, the managers and agents are smart, but what's the alternative? All they have to do is stay a few car lengths ahead of Bellator and ONE, and fighters will still sign and re-sign with them. The argument used to be that you could at least go make sponsorship money with Bellator, but the UFC moving to Reebok as all put a lot of those sponsors we once knew out of business.
As for DAZN, I merely mentioned Wilder as an example of how much money boxing is throwing around. As for DAZN itself, there's no way their worldwide subscription base is paying for these contracts they're throwing around in boxing, not to mention the cost of rights to the NFL, Champions League, and Premier League, but then I keep hearing they have Russian oligarchs financing the whole thing .