Gordon Ryan previously advocated for significant increases in prize money for winners of the Abu Dhabi Combat Club. He argued that raising the stakes would attract top-tier athletes and elevate the sport’s profile.
“My biggest thing to build ADCC is doing an amazing job, obviously. But you have to, you have to increase the prize money, in my opinion,” Ryan said. “I think I think that you either have to increase the prize money so drastically that it’s like by far the highest payment in spend, like grappling events, period.”
The current ADCC champion only receives $10,000 for winning their weight class. Ryan thinks that is a negligible amount in the grand scheme and won’t move the needle in terms of growth or talent acquisition for ADCC.
Ryan would also like to see the absolute champion increased from $20,000 to $500,000 and the superfight winner boosted from $30,000 to $1 million. These types of payouts would make winning ADCC life-changing for even the top athletes in the sport.
However, a recent shift in his stance raises eyebrows, especially after his former teammate Craig Jones highlighted the discrepancy between ADCC’s financial success and the prize money awarded to competitors.
Jones pointed out that while ADCC’s popularity and revenue have soared, prize money has remained stagnant. Despite the event’s exponential growth in attendance and visibility, first-place winnings have remained at $10,000.
Jones emphasized the disparity between event earnings, such as streaming rights purchased by FloGrappling for over $1 million in 2022, and athlete compensation, which lacks direct revenue sharing.
Contrary to Ryan’s initial call for across-the-board prize increases, he now asserts that only he deserves greater compensation from ADCC. This shift in perspective raises questions about conflicting interests, particularly Ryan’s close relationship with ADCC promoter Mo Jassim.
Jassim himself acknowledged the long-standing issue of unchanged prize money since the event’s inception in 1998 but expressed openness to revisiting compensation discussions.
The disparity between ADCC’s financial success and athlete compensation underscores broader concerns about fairness and equity in competitive grappling. While the sport continues to gain popularity and commercial value, the distribution of wealth and resources among athletes remains a contentious issue.
