FloGrappling general manager says UFC BJJ is losing money and the math "doesn't work out"
On a podcast, Ben Kovacs said he is sure UFC BJJ's big events lose money and revealed that a jiu-jitsu star asked for US$170,000 to compete at a WNO event.
Ben Kovacs, general manager of FloGrappling, said he is sure UFC BJJ is losing money on its big events. He made the statement on The Ageless Warrior Lab, a podcast hosted by Dave Meyer and published on YouTube.
FloGrappling is a grappling streaming platform and runs WNO. According to Kovacs, the economics of professional grappling rarely work out, and UFC BJJ is an example of that. "The math doesn't work out," he summed up.
Kovacs's math
To explain his reasoning, he ran a simulation without using official UFC numbers: with a subscription of about US$5 a month and 10,000 buys for an event, revenue would be around US$50,000. According to Kovacs, that amount would not even pay for the night's main event.
He also pointed to UFC's recent bet on open tournaments and said the organization has more data than any other company in the space.
Prize money and purses
In the interview, Kovacs argued for shorter events, focused on the matches that actually draw an audience. "People just don't care about 99.999% of jiu-jitsu," he said.
As an example of an event that pays for itself, he mentioned Fight to Win, which keeps venue costs under control, leaves ticket sales to the competitors and does not offer big prize money. At WNO, on the other hand, he said the problem is the purses. Kovacs said that, while putting together an event in Austin, in the United States, a jiu-jitsu star asked for US$170,000. He offered US$40,000, and the athlete replied that he would not accept less than US$100,000. The athlete's name was not revealed.
The general manager linked these demands to Gordon Ryan's old contract with FloGrappling. In his view, Ryan drew an audience a hundred or a thousand times larger than other athletes, so what he was paid is not a benchmark for everyone else.
The reports on the interview do not include a response from UFC. The organization's next event, UFC BJJ 13, is scheduled for October 29, with the fight for the bantamweight belt vacated by Mikey Musumeci.
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