Adjusted for Inflation, Michael Jordan’s NBA Salary Still Eclipses Highest-Paid Athlete Conor McGregor’s UFC Purses by a Mile

Conor McGregor is one of the brightest shining stars in the entire combat sports world. ‘Mystic Mac’ boasts an unmatched following owing to his stupendous in-cage striking and brash approach on the mic. Conor McGregor has also amassed a sumptuous amount of money from the UFC as fight purses. He was also the UFC’s highest-paid fighter for quite some time.

On the other hand, The NBA stalwart, Michael Jordan, was also one of the highest-paid NBA athletes of his time. Despite the fact that his career was at its peak in the 90s, the Air-Jordan juggernaut still made lucrative amounts of money from the NBA. His then salary from NBA would be quite an even match for the salaries of the highest-paid athletes of today.

Michael Jordan’s insane salary year-by-year

Michael Jordan’s star-studded NBA career saw him lift the title for the Chicago Bulls six times. Jordan played 13 seasons for the Chicago bulls out of his 15-season career. By the arrival of the 1990s, he had already achieved legend status, and his pay reflected that. His year-wise salary stats looked somewhat like this:

• Season	Salary amount
  1990-91	$2.6M
  1991-92	$3.2M
  1992-93	$4M
  1994-95	$3.87M
  1995-96	$3.85M
  1996-97	$30M
  1997-98	$27M
  1998-99	$33.1

With the salary cap limits increased in 1996, Michael Jordan also received an increase in his yearly contract amount. His salary went up by leaps and bounds in the seasons following 1995. The NBA star gained a whopping $30.1M as his salary for the 1996-97 season.

This figure declined a bit for his 1997-98 contract, which stood at $27M. However, Jordan hit his all-time high in terms of his NBA salary during his 1998-99 contract, which promised him about $33.1M. This was the record amount of salary given to an NBA athlete until 2017, when LeBron James topped it. Throughout his career, Michael Jordan amassed a whopping $107.52M from the insane salaries of his NBA career.

Conor McGregor’s purse per fight

McGregor was the face of the UFC and was one of the major factors in popularizing the sport of MMA throughout the world. He also earned lucrative amounts of money as his fight purse.

McGregor had made the journey from being paid a meager $66.5k for his first UFC fight to receiving an insane $4.4M as his fight purse for his UFC 257 fight against Dustin Poirier in Jan 2021. His detailed fight purse from every UFC fight is as follows:

1. Date	Event	Opponent	Fight Purse
   April 6, 2013	UFC on Fuel TV	Marcus Brimage	$66.5k
   August 17, 2013	UFC Fight Night	Max Holloway	$21.7k
   July 19, 2014	UFC Fight Night	Diego Brandao	$72.5k
   September 27, 2014	UFC 184	Dustin Poirier	$176.5k
   January 18, 2015	UFC Fight Night	Dennis Siver	$193.4k
   July 11, 2015	UFC 189	Chad Mendes	$511.5k
   December 12, 2015	UFC 194	Jose Aldo	$521.2k
   March 5, 2016	UFC 196	Nate Diaz	$962.6k
   August 20, 2016	UFC 202	Nate Diaz	$2.7M
   November 12, 2016	UFC 205	Eddie Alvarez	$2.7M
   October 6, 2018	UFC 229	Khabib Nurmagomedov	$2.64M
   January 18, 2020	UFC 246	Donald Cerrone	$2.71M
   January 24, 2021	UFC 257	Dustin Poirier	$4.42M
   July 11, 2021	UFC 264	Dustin Poirier	$5M
   August 26, 2017	Boxing	Floyd Mayweather	$72M

McGregor earned a whopping $72M dollars from his highly touted boxing bout with Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather. The accumulated worth from McGregor’s fight purses is 94.69M. It is the maximum that any fighter has earned from the UFC.

The average salaries of top-paid athletes

There are a lot of athletes who earn lucrative amounts from their contracts. Talking about basketball, LeBron James is the current highest-paid NBA athlete whose 2022-23 salary stands at an insane $124.5M.

Whereas NFL star Aaron Donald boasts the highest salary in his field, which stands at around $31.67M.

Conor McGregor’s fight purse figures are obviously insane considering the fact that he went for multiple fights in a year. But, Michael Jordan’s, even in 1998, startlingly boasted a salary of about the same amount as Aaron Donald has today. His overall income from the salaries of his career which spanned the 1990’s is still more than the lifetime fight purses of one of the most noted combat superstars of today. Michael Jordan is truly kind of ‘untouchable’, in the court and even in terms of worth.