Conor McGregor says fighters get '1% sponsor' and vows to change that at BKFC
McGregor, a co-owner of BKFC, said fighters get "not even a fraction" of the sponsor money other athletes earn, and that a fighter who can draw a crowd "is a 7-figure fighter".
Conor McGregor says fighters get only a fraction of the sponsor money other athletes earn, and has vowed to change that at BKFC, the bare-knuckle promotion he co-owns.
Speaking at a BKFC press conference, McGregor said: "Look at my debut when I walked out, right, with no top, no sponsors. You know, we barely get a f***ing sponsor. Yeah, we don't get sponsors, fighters."
He claimed that tennis players and footballers get "10% of their overall purse or overall wage packet" from their sport and the other 90% from sponsors. He went on: "Fighters, the hardest men and women that give their all for the entertainment of the masses in the oldest form known to man, they don't get f***ing, not even a fraction of that. It's 95, even more, percent purse and 1% sponsor."
McGregor added: "So we're changing the game here. I helped boost it up for the UFC and for mixed martial artists. I'm doing it here for bare knuckle."
He also set out what he thinks a BKFC fighter can earn: "A fighter who can command that noise in that arena and that victory and that buzz afterward calling for future economic growth within the company is a 7-figure fighter. That's how I done it. I didn't do it by bluster." He said he had negotiated that way with the UFC "contract after contract after contract".
At the same press conference McGregor named Max Holloway as the opponent he wants for his final UFC fight and said he is working on "the largest attendance of a fight event of all time". BKFC founder David Feldman has said talks with McGregor will only begin once his UFC career is finished.
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About this report
Reported by the Combat Sports UK desk. Times are UK and Irish time, and we update the report when the facts change. How we work.