Fighter pay is one of the biggest issues raised by athletes in the UFC. Fighters like Jorge Masvidal, Paulo Costa, and Francis Ngannou have shown their dissent towards the amount of money they’re making.

After every event when the fighter’s salary is released, it becomes a subject of discussion. Mostly, the debate is around whether fighters should get paid more.

Salt Lake City, Utah hosted the UFC 278 event. Most recently, they released the salary of the fighters who contested in the event.

Comparing Kamaru Usman and Joe Rogan’s salary

To the surprise of many, Kamaru Usman, who entered as the champion, made only $500,000; moreover, he had been a champion for over three years and defended his belt five times.

Fans started drawing a comparison between Usman’s salary versus the money that Joe Rogan makes through one ad and stated that The Nigerian Nightmare would need to fight twice to make the amount that the podcast host charges for a single ad.

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People were also astonished to see former UFC middleweight champion Luke Rockhold make $200,000, despite being in the company for more than nine years.

It was also revealed that Leon Edwards, who won the fight, made $350,000 and Paulo Costa made $130,000. 

How much does Joe Rogan make out of a single ad?

Since going exclusively on Spotify, the prices for ads have gone exponentially high. According to an article on The Verge, “Joe Rogan’s show used to cost tens of thousands of dollars previous to him going exclusive to Spotify. Next year, to get any ads on Rogan, the minimum spend is $1 million, they say, at a CPM upward of $60.”

Spotify’s spokeswoman justified the hike in price and said, “We believe the many innovations taking shape will benefit the entire marketplace, including creators and advertisers, and we’re confident that advertisers of all sizes will continue to find immense value in the space.”

Joe Rogan weighed in on the fighter pay issue as well. Speaking about it on his podcast, he said, “… there are also fighters that agree to certain deals. They agree to like an 8-fight deal at X amount per fight, and then they become more popular. Then they want to renegotiate their deal, and the UFC is like, ‘Look, we’re just trying to stay open. We’re not going to renegotiate anything. You can take it or you can leave it, but this is what it is.’ I think it’s a matter of that.”

Let us know what you think about the fighter pay issue. Did the UFC pay Kamaru Usman less?

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