UFC CEO Dana White has made the announcement of what Turki Al-Sheikh wanted him to say at the end of Thursday’s Canelo vs. Crawford press conference.
It involves money, and it involves a bonus structure that will be available to anyone on the undercard outside of the headliners of Saturday’s mega event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Similar to UFC, there will be a Fight of the Night bonus up for grabs, as well as one Performance of the Night. However, according to White, they will be designated at $100,000 each rather than the typical $50,000 that has existed for UFC fighters for the majority of the past decade.
“The opportunity wasn’t there during the press conference, so I’ll announce it here,” White said on “The Stephen A. Smith Show” on SiriusXM. “So on the undercard fights – Canelo and Crawford are going to do just fine on Saturday, they’re going to be OK – but on the undercard fights we’re going to have a Performance of the Night and a Fight of the Night. $100,000 each for the fighters on the undercard from Turki Al-Sheikh.
“You can be involved in the Performance of the Night and the Fight of the Night and take home $200,000 for those undercard fighters.”
It remains to be seen whether the $100,000 bonuses for this event are a glimpse into the future for UFC. White said the $50,000 rate would “obviously” go up once the UFC’s new U.S. broadcast agreement with Paramount, announced at $7.7 billion over seven years, goes into place in 2026.
