New UFC Documents Reveals Cost-Cutting Plans

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A new report has emerged revealing new UFC owners WME-IMG’s plans to cut costs across the promotion in more detail.

The investor document was obtained by MMAJunkie and outlines a number of ways in which the company will seek to cut a total of $71 million from their yearly expenditure.

The first phase of the plan has already taken place, with around 15% of the UFC’s staff being laid off, including a number of high-profile executives, including the likes of Garry Cook, Tom Wright, Marshall Zelaznik, Dave Sholler, Jamie Pollack, Giovanni Decker and Ken Berger.

That cull is expected to produce the bigggest area of saving for the company, totaling around $55.4 million.

The long-running Ultimate Fighter reality show will also see it’s budget cut from $27.6 million to just $10 million.

WME-IMG anticipate making further savings, “through increased standardization and more rigorous corporate discipline, namely in “compensation practices, (travel and expense) policies, long-lived consultants, political contributions, overhead, etc.”

In addition that, “The corporate airplane is not part of the acquisition and we do not expect such expenses on an ongoing basis.”

Despite all the cutbacks, the company is also looking to grow it’s profits with a full slate of 13 pay-per-view events in the coming year, while there’s also $48 million in contracted growth anticipated from increased right fees stemming from their current TV deal with FOX along with sponsorship deals.

With the UFC have cut back heavily in it’s international offices there’s been speculation that could lead to a reduction in the number of events overall that the UFC delivers in the coming year, but at this stage there’s no official word on whether that will be the case or not.

Ross launched MMA Insight (previously FightOfTheNight.com) in 2009 as a way to channel his passion for the sport of mixed martial arts. He's since penned countless news stories and live fight reports along with dozens of feature articles as the lead writer for the site, reaching millions of fans in the process.