Den demokratiske presidentkandidaten Andrew Yang medverkade för inte länge sedan i Joe Rogans podcast och har sedan dess tagit emot 47 000 individuella donationer till sin kampanj och han är nu på god väg att bli inkluderad i Demokraternas primärvalsdebatter senare i år.
Silicon Valley-enterprenören Yang har länge haft MMA som stort intresse och gjorde i en medverkan i MMA Fighting det känt att hans svensexa byggdes runt TUF-finalen för åtta år sedan.
Nu går han dock ut och kritiserar UFC (och indirekt andra organisationer också) för hur de behandlar sina fighters där han menade att det är snålt av organisationen att endast ge 10-15% av intäkterna till atleterna medan det i andra sporter brukar röra sig om uppemot 50%.
Yang anser att UFC:s VD Dana White borde sluta skryta om sina intäkter och att ett fack borde upprättas för UFC-fighters likt i andra amerikanska ligor som NHL
Yang hävdade även att den välkände MMA-journalisten Ariel Helwani inte kan kritisera detta då han är anställd av UFC:s partner ESPN vilket denne inte tog med ro.
Ni kan Yangs inlägg och utväxlingen med Helwani via Twitter här nedan:
MMA fighters in the UFC receive only 10-15% of revenues vs. ~50% in other sports. I would apply the Ali Act to MMA and allow fighters to unionize. Firing @LeslieSmith_GF when her opponent didn’t make weight was clearly retaliatory. @danawhite should stop boasting about revenue.
— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYangVFA) March 10, 2019
Ariel Helwani probably can’t touch this because he works for @espn the @ufc new broadcast partner. Too bad he seems like he knows the score. How can you hang out with the fighters and not.
— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYangVFA) March 10, 2019
Laughable. I’ve been talking about these issues long before you cared about MMA. I appreciate your interest in this topic but just because you care about it right now doesn’t mean I have to respond to every attempt of yours to bait me into a public discussion. Good luck.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) March 10, 2019
You don’t know how long I’ve cared about MMA Ariel. And you are clearly not the bad guy here. Just saying it’s going to be tough under ESPN. I remember them firing Bill Simmons for messing with the NFL. The relationship is too new for someone to question the fundamentals.
— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYangVFA) March 10, 2019
The shame of it is that a union would be better for the sport long-term. Would draw better athletes. Better pipeline. More mainstream stars. Easier to watch with a clear conscience.
— Andrew Yang (@AndrewYangVFA) March 10, 2019
Nedan kan ni även läsa Yangs uttalanden om UFC:s löner i intervjun med MMA Fighting:
I just found it disgusting, because the reason why it’s supposedly worth $7 billion is because they are underpaying fighters by a factor of four, relative to what they should be paying by any common sense standard,” Yang said. “And also by the standards of other major sports. So Dana White is talking out of both sides of his mouth. He’s like, ‘MMA is going to be the biggest sport in the world, MMA is the biggest thing,’ and then he’s paying people 10, 12 percent of revenues when every other major sport is paying between 47 and 51 percent.
So, I just got angry about that. That Dana White is such a moron, honestly. Because if you’re going to exploit workers, you might want to keep that valuation under your hat. That to me is fairly common sense.
