Life After the Bell

Life After the Bell

Every athlete must face one simple truth…at some point their athletic careers will be over. Whether it is because of injury or the physical toll sports takes on a person’s body an athlete’s career spans only a short time. A professional athlete has a limited number of opportunities and a small window of time to compete and be successful while earning a viable living making money to support their families.

While the love of their respective sport initially drives a competitor to aspire to be a professional athlete, the purpose of reaching for the highest goal in athletics is to make money. World class athletes are a very rare breed. They work, train and sacrifice their bodies and relationships and much more in an attempt to reach the pinnacle of the sports world. Mixed martial arts competitors are no different.

Our young sport has struggled in the past with the issue of fighter pay. Fighters in small promotions make very little money. They might fight for as little as $50.00 just to get a fight in any promotion that can match them up with an opponent. Some are forced to take multiple fights in a single month just to make the money back that they spent on training. Add manager’s fees, equipment, travel time, doctor bills, rent/mortgage, car payments, and family responsibilities and a lot of these guys are fighting for simple love of the game and the promise of opportunity without any long or short term guarantees.

With MMA slowly but steadily moving in to the mainstream world of sports, we have seen fighter pay make significant strides in the last few years. UFC cards make a contracted amount of money. With revenue sharing from pay-per-view UFC cards, men and women who headline are in a great position to earn much more than merely a contracted salary. For example; just because a fighter has a show purse of $15k does not mean that the UFC fighter doesn’t have an opportunity to make more money. If a fighter makes $15k to show and another $15k to win, he/she has the possibility of earning an “…of the night” bonus. The bonus can be achieved by having a fight of the night, submission of the night or knockout of the night. Fighters in the UFC can double their bonus money by winning fight of the night and a submission/knockout of the night. With bonuses capped at around $50k, a fighter can earn an extra $100k in bonuses plus their show and win money. This is not a bad payday for a nights work. However, these opportunities are very rare in the world of MMA as only a few promotions offer these types of bonuses to their fighters.

With name recognition, comes other opportunities outside of their sport. An athlete can procure endorsements that can provide some financial security to provide for themselves and their families.

A number of fighters have left the world of MMA to pursue acting. Randy Couture and the Nogueira brothers all have starred in successful “The Expendables” action movie franchise. Quentin “Rampage” Jackson did it when he took time off to star as B.A. Baracus in the 2010 movie version of 1980’s television series “The A-Team.” Gina Carano left the world of MMA to pursue a career in television and movies. Carano has had some great success in her life after fighting. We don’t know if  she would have had those opportunities if she had not been an MMA fighter with great name recognition. The fact of the matter is, she had a chance to further her career in entertainment and she took it with great success. This doesn’t mean these fighters haven’t met with some criticism by doing so. After all, they are fighters, and as fight fans, we want to see them fight.

UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey is a major MMA superstar. Other than the aforementioned Carano, no other woman in MMA has done more for women’s mixed martial arts than Ronda. Contrary to popular opinion, she was not an overnight success. Before her MMA success and during her time on the U.S.A. Olympic judo team, Ronda worked several jobs just to make ends meet. She did all of this while still training. Since her debut in the now defunct Strikeforce, Ronda’s star has risen to unprecedented heights. We see her on talk shows, magazines, commercials for major products, and, now movies. She has earned roles in the latest installment of the successful Fast and Furious franchise in the upcoming film “Fast and Furious 7” as well as a role in the next “Expendables” movie. Ronda is proof that hard work and determination really does pay-off in the long run.

Rousey recently stated, “I think I’ve got two years (in MMA) left in me, realistically…I think one profession has a much-longer shelf life than the other.” Writers and fans flocked to social media outlets to unfairly criticize Ronda for taking these opportunities. Her detractors’ say she should focus on fighting and stop talking about retiring someday, stop making movies and focus on her fight career. They say that if she is already talking about retirement, she should get out of the fight game now.

When an athlete competes, he/she has the possibility of other careers outside of sports. Just because they earned recognition through one medium, does not mean they should not look for other career options.

Ronda is a smart business woman with a strong desire to succeed in everything she does. She did not work multiple jobs before MMA success because it was fun. She did it so she could be successful and she had to pay the bills.

The old adage “Nobody plans to fail, they fail to plan” is an appropriate maxim to summarize the necessity of planning for life after athletics. In athletics, especially combat sports, the body takes rigorous beatings. Physical challenge is just one aspect of an athlete’s success. The mental or psychological strains on a fighter are just as tough to overcome. If an athlete has the opportunity to make more money and further their professional achievements, they should go after it with the same drive as they did when pursuing their athletic success without any guff from keyboard warriors and opinionated fools.

Thank you and stay safe.

Randy Casjens
Twitter @SavageRandy