Taken from this article:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/395257-ufc-millionaireswho-are-theyAccording to a recent article in Esquire magazine, the UFC has 18 fighters making over $1 million a year:
“White estimates that eighteen of his ultimate fighters earn in the millions per annum. Many others make in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. New guys make fifty to seventy-five, depending where you are in the pecking order.”
Note: No pay figures include sponsorship, “under-the-table”, or any other sort of compensation other than the type listed that fighters are believed to receive.
(Please note that these are estimates. All fighters who had an included estimated pay is denoted with an asterisk.)
1. George St. Pierre - $800K
2. *Dan Henderson - $600K
3. Lyoto Machida - $585K
4. *Shogun Rua - $565k
5. *Randy Couture - $560K
6. *Chuck Liddell - $500K
7. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira - $460K
8. *Forrest Griffin - $435K
9. Brock Lesner - $400K
10. *Anderson Silva - $400k
11. Quinton Jackson - $385K
12. *B.J. Penn - $310K
13. *Tito Ortiz - $250K
14. *Diego Sanchez - $225K
15. Rich Franklin - $210K
16. Wanderlei Silva - $210K
Now, here is when things get a little tricky. It is widely accepted that the main draws on any given card are given a cut of the pay-per-view revenue. According to FighterLinks.com, this is how the PPV bonuses are distributed:
Up to 100K buys--$0
100K-175K--@ $1 = $75K
175K-300K--@ $1.50 = 187K
300K-330K--@ $2 = 60K
330K+ = (# of buys -330K) X $3
So to make it a little simpler, if a PPV hits more than 330K buys, which all of the events in 2009 did, the fighter would automatically get the first three bonuses ($332K) plus $3 for every buy in excess of 330K.
Since nobody knows for sure who gets these bonuses, I am going to assume that if the main event featured a title bout, the champion, or champions in some cases, receive their cut based on the table above. The title challenger or a “name” fighter on the card would receive a $332K bonus. Using this theory and the estimated pay-per-view buys provided by MMAPayout.com, these are the fighters who made the Millionaire’s list.
10. Forrest Griffin - The original "Ultimate Fighter" barely makes the list at $1.099M.
9. Rich Franklin - The former Middleweight and unofficial "Catchweight" champion made $1.206M.
8. Shogun Rua - The newly crowned Light Heavyweight champion pulled in $1.229M. Not too shabby considering how bad he looked against Mark Coleman.
7. Rashad Evans - He will probably end up making more for his upcoming fight with Quinton Jackson than he made in all of 2009, but he did make a respectable $1.447M
6. Lyoto Machida - The recently uncrowned Light Heavyweight champion, or the "Karate Kid" as my daughter likes to call him, raked in $1.759M.
5. Anderson Silva - The current Middleweight kingpin put $2.024M under his mattress last year, which made it very lumpy by the way.
4. B.J. Penn - "The Prodigy" earned $3.554M. For more, go to BJPenn.com.
3. Frank Mir - I guess taking a good old fashion butt-kicking does have its advantages as it make Mir $4.232M richer.
2. Brock Lesnar - Being a genetic freak made Brock $4.542M richer. That's a lot of hunting bows.
1. Georges St. Pierre - The B/R #1 Pound-For-Pound fighter is also the #1 paid fighter in the UFC, as he added a measly $6.684M to his bank account.
Dan Henderson--$932K
Randy Couture--$892K
Chuck Liddell--$832K
Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira--$792K
Quinton Jackson--$777K
Tito Ortiz--$582K
Diego Sanchez--$557K
Wanderlei Silva--$542K
The other eight who came close, with the exception of Diego Sanchez, I could see being in the Millionaire’s club as well.
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