How much do MMA judges make in the UFC?
So you want to be an MMA judge
If you want to earn money as an MMC judge, you can earn money judging MMA fights at events like UFC on Pay Per View. But are judges getting paid enough?
MMA judges are making too many mistakes in the UFC.
How much do MMA judges actually make?
Why are MMA judges getting it wrong on the score cards? Is money somehow involved? Are they being bribed? Getting paid off? How much are they getting paid?
California State Athletic Commission
According to information provided by the California State Athletic Commission, pay for MMA judges in the Golden State is very low. Take a look at the chart below.
Standard Officials’ Pay Scale
| Net Gate | Referee | Judge | Timekeeper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-$50,000 | $350.00 | $300.00 | $300.00 |
| $50,000-$100,000 | $450.00 | $350.00 | $350.00 |
| $100,000 AND ABOVE | $650.00 | $550.00 | $400.00 |
Notes about this chart:
- Net Gate represents the total gross receipts plus television of any kind and video income, minus State, Pension and Neurological Fund taxes.
- The number of officials assigned is dependent on the number of rounds, bouts and or championship bouts.
- Officials shall be paid a mileage allowance of .56 cents per mile for actual round trip travel from Official’s residence to the venue.
- Officials that are assigned to events that are 100 miles (one way) or more from their residence shall be provided a hotel room and $40.00 per day as a meal allowance. For safety reasons a five (5) mile allowance to this policy will exist for such cases where officials may have to travel late night.
- Officials will be entitled to compensation of $100 if any event is cancelled by the promotion company. This fee will be approved by the California State Athletic Commission Management Team.
$900.00
Other sources indicate that MMA judges get paid as little as $900 per event. Meanwhile, WME-IME paid $4,000,000,000 for a majority stake in the UFC in 2016.
How can UFC Judges be paid such a shockingly small fee in an organization worth $4 billion?
4 Billion Dollars
In How do You Become an MMA Judge, I explained the limited amount of information on the subject. Similarly, with regard to MMA judge salaries we are dealing with state athletic commissions.
Let’s take a look at what we know:
According to the Nevada State Athletic Commission
1. A judge is not paid a salary or provided any benefits.
2. A judge is compensated at the conclusion of each event. The range of compensation varies depending on the particular contest.
3. There is no guaranty of a certain number of assignments or a specific amount of compensation in each fiscal year. Assignments to specific contests are at the discretion of the Executive Director and NSAC and are based on experience, recent performance, reliability, professionalism, and difficulty of assignment.
NSAC http://boxing.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/boxingnvgov/content/Licensing/JUDGE.pdf
Difficult not to become cynical
Maybe you are thinking about becoming an MMA judge, or maybe you are just curious about how much MMA judges actually make? Especially, in light of controversy at a recent UFC event, which I wrote about here, you might wonder: what is going on with the judging.
MMA judges getting it wrong on the score cards. Why? Is money somehow involved? Are they being bribed? Getting paid off?
As you might expect, these are difficult questions to answer with any amount of certainty. The athletic commissions are notoriously insular organizations.
Fighting is in our DNA
Judging who wins a fist fight is not exactly the same as rocket surgery. Most people, even if they are not fight fans, understand that fighting is a basic human instinct.
Everyone knows about the human “fight or flight” response to dangerous stimuli. Fighting, truly, is part of our DNA.
Judges make mistakes
Even though fighting is a part of our DNA, specific, individual human beings have proven, over and over again, that they absolutely know nothing about fighting.
More shocking is that, from time to time, these individuals somehow end up working as the judges at important MMA events. Inevitably, their score cards leave us all scratching our heads.
More and more, it seems that MMA judges are making mistakes. They get the scores totally wrong.
Never leave it in the hands of the judges.
Dana White, President of the UFC
Losing Money
What’s worse is that inaccurate scoring deprives the defrauded fighter of a substantial amount of his or her income. The wrong scores prevent him or her from collecting their win money. In too many contracts, this can be anywhere from several thousand to hundreds of thousands of dollars. But that’s not the end of the financial picture. These are million dollar decisions. Fortunes are being made and lost.
Losing Respect
There are many other casualties too: lost sponsorships, inability to pay coaches and sparring partners. Then the fighter’s ranking may plummet. They may even be dropped from the promotion. The list goes on and on.
The ramifications of poor judging decisions in MMA extend deep into the lives of the fighters and their teams and families.
Never leave it in the hands of the judges
We know that the state of judging in MMA is bad. In fact, we have known this from the beginnings of the sport. When the UFC was becoming more main stream to it’s current height of popularity and acceptance, UFC President Dana White would implore all of the fighters from the beginning of the television program The Ultimate Fighter: “Never leave it in the hands of the judges.”
In fact, Dana White and the UFC had this admonition painted in giant bold letters on the wall of the UFC Training Center so that the fighters would see it as they walked to the cage.
How much do MMA judges really make?
In my article How do You Become an MMA Judge, I explained the limited amount of information on the subject. Similarly, with regard to MMA judge salaries, limited information exists. Other than a few posts to some online forums, which indicate that MMA judges get paid $900 per event, there is not much more information readily available.
According to the California State Athletic Commission website:
California State Athletic Commission Officials’ Pay Scale for MMA
| Net Gate | Referee | Judge | Timekeeper |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0-$50,000 | $350.00 | $300.00 | $300.00 |
| $50,000-$100,000 | $450.00 | $350.00 | $350.00 |
| $100,000 AND ABOVE | $650.00 | $550.00 | $400.00 |
According to the Nevada State Athletic Commission website:
1. A judge is not paid a salary or provided any benefits.
2. A judge is compensated at the conclusion of each event. The range of compensation varies depending on the particular contest.
3. There is no guaranty of a certain number of assignments or a specific amount of compensation in each fiscal year. Assignments to specific contests are at the discretion of the Executive Director and NSAC and are based on experience, recent performance, reliability, professionalism, and difficulty of assignment.
NSAC http://boxing.nv.gov/uploadedFiles/boxingnvgov/content/Licensing/JUDGE.pdf
How to become an MMA Judge
Finally, if you are interested in finding out what it takes to become a Certified MMA Judge, check out my article on How do You Become an MMA Judge.
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