The American-based Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is the largest mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion in the world. Since its inception in 1993, the UFC has been the subject of controversies, ranging from moral condemnation of its events by politicians, which resulted in MMA being banned in many US states, to criticism for underpaying its athletes and for criminal behavior committed by its fighters.
State and television bans
In 1996, United States senator John McCain saw a UFC tape and found it "barbaric". Stating that it was "not a sport", he sent letters to all 50 US governors asking them to ban "human cockfighting". The American Medical Association also recommended a ban. David Plotz of Slate reported that critics also found the chain-link fenced octagon that the combatants fought in to be "grotesque" and demanded that ropes be installed instead. 36 states enacted laws that banned "no holds barred" fighting (the term "mixed martial arts" was not yet being used). In early 1997, McCain became chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, which oversees the cable television industry. In April 1997, the president of the National Cable Television Association warned that UFC broadcasts could jeopardize the cable industry's influence in Washington, D.C., despite the fact that the UFC only aired on pay-per-view. TWC, TCI, Request TV, Cablevision Systems, Viewer's Choice, and other major operators stopped airing UFC events, as being too violent for children. Between 1997 and 1998, the UFC instituted more safety rules, such as imposing weight classes and a "10-point must" scoring system, banning head butts and groin strikes, and requiring fighters to wear martial arts gloves. In 2000, California became the first state to implement a set of codified rules governing MMA, quickly followed by New Jersey. In 2016, New York became the 50th and final US state to legalize MMA.
Fighter pay and medical coverage
The UFC has long been criticized for underpaying its fighters. Karim Zidan of The Guardian reported in December 2022 that, unlike the vast majority of sports leagues and organizations, where athletes receive between 47% and 50% of the sport's revenue, the UFC has historically paid out between 16 and 19% of its revenues to its fighters. In 2021, John S. Nash of Bloody Elbow reported that since 2005, fighter pay fluctuated between 15 and 22% of the UFC's revenue. In contrast, rival promotion Bellator MMA paid their fighters 44.7% of their revenue between 2010 and 2016, while Strikeforce (active in MMA promotion from 2006 to 2013) reportedly paid their fighters 63%. Northwestern University labor law professor Zev Eigen told the Bleacher Report in 2013, that Eddie Alvarez's UFC contract was the worst he had seen in the sports or entertainment fields; "There's nothing that sets a minimum or basic standard" of pay that the company can not go below. Eigen called the confidentiality clause prohibiting a fighter from revealing how much they are paid a violation of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. In 2016, James Quinn of the law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges, called Georges St-Pierre's UFC contract "something out of the 1940s" and was "blown away" by how restrictive it was; "They're basically tying him up for life. They have no rights and they own all of his licensing and all the other things. It's unheard of in the other professional sports." In 2020, sports journalist Bryant Gumbel called the UFC, "the one in which the athletes seem to have the fewest rights and arguably the least say in their own safety". Marc Raimondi of ESPN wrote that it is common for UFC fighters to go into fights with injuries because they do not get paid unless they fight.