Gamebred Boxing 4 by Jorge Masvidal takes place on Saturday, April 1, 2023 at Fiserv Form in Milwaukee, WI featuring a card loaded with top-level talent.
The event featured notable names and former combat sports champions including Roy Jones Jr., Anthony Pettis, Jose Aldo, and Vitor Belfort, among others. The pay of all contracted athletes was revealed after the event, where MMA Junkie earned Payment detection Direct from the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Occupational Services.
Among the high earners, Jones earned $700,000, while Pettis earned $650,000 without a win bonus.
Now, Cageside Press has been given a look at the kind of numbers the promotion has been working with, and the projections presented to investors.
Despite being a boxing card, Gamebred Boxing 4 was clearly geared towards MMA fans – from the names involved, to UFC Fight Pass being one of the services that broadcast PPV’s, to MMA superstar Jorge Masvidal lending his name to the card as a promoter. Many wondered how even a prominent name like Masvidal could finance such an event, and still turn a profit. Look no further than the aforementioned card payment, which came to $2,827,700, — more than the aforementioned $2.54 million that was Unveiled by the Utah Athletic Commission for UFC 278 less than a year ago.
And that possibly incomplete figure of nearly three million dollars is already high; Main event fighters have earned $1.35 million alone. The first three fights on the card – Jose Aldo vs. Jeremy Stephens, Vitor Belfort vs. Jacare Souza, and Roy Jones Jr. vs. Anthony Pettis – were the main attractions and these fighters earned a combined $2.575 million according to the aforementioned MMA Junkie report. They also note, “Amounts reflect disclosed payments only and do not include any out-of-contract bonuses, sponsor payments, or discretionary bonuses.”
Now, a PnL (Profit and Loss) document provided by a source familiar with Gamebred Boxing 4’s investor research, obtained by Cageside Press, has added key context to the event’s financials from a promoter’s point of view. The documents also provide wage figures for fighters beyond what was disclosed to MMA Junkie, possibly indicating back bonuses for a few fighters.
The most significant numbers come from Gamebred Boxing’s projected revenue. The special promotion documents projected one million dollars each from sponsorship and a live gate, as well as three hundred thousand pay-per-view sales for the event. After taking away a 45% PPV fee for iNDemand, which distributed the event through cable and digital along with a UFC Fight Pass, Gamebred Boxing’s projected PPV revenue came to $8,248,350.
Before deducting these fees, the total projected revenue from PPV sales was $14,997,000 – nearly $15 million. The total cash revenue projection for the event was $10,248,350. There is no indication as to whether these expectations were met or what kind of metrics were used to reach them.
According to a source familiar with the situation, Gamebred Boxing 4 was looking for $1.5 million in funding less than five weeks prior to the event from potential investors. This figure would have been just over 40% of the projected expenses of $3,745,430 that the promotion would have had to cover for the event.
At the time the document was drawn up, the $3.7 million included $3,122,500 for the fighter’s wages, or 83% of total expenses. The remaining expenses will consist of travel and other costs totaling $622,930, including $150,000 for marketing for the event, $45,000 for hotels, and $50,000 for the live press conference. The commentary team — made up of former IBF and WBC world welterweight champion Shaun Porter, boxing referee Shaun Willock, and freelance media person Cyrus Fees — was listed at $50,000, with no breakdown of what each got. A section of the document under Expenses is titled “Jorge Masvidal Fees,” although there is no expense number listed in this row. Other categories—including penalty fees, promotion fees, and post-event gate tax—are included, but likewise have no number listed, so these documents should not be assumed to be the full and final expenses of the event.
The pay figures for the fighters listed by Gamebred Boxing in the PnL document obtained by Cageside Press were broadly similar to the payouts earned by MMA Junkie, but there are a few key differences:
The Wisconsin Commission listed Anthony Bettis as earning $650,000, which is corroborated by these documents. However, his opponent, Roy Jones Jr., was said to have made $700,000 while Gamebred Boxing’s internal documents list him at $900,000, perhaps indicating more back-end bonuses for the former boxing champ. Alternately, negotiations with the star in the months after the PnL figures were produced may have culminated in a lower payout for the boxer.
Also worth noting is the difference in Marcos Perez’s recorded return number from the one mentioned. The former UFC fighter made headlines by mentioning this He would be paid three times as much for his fight as he was for his fights in the UFC. This statement was called into question by MMA Junkie’s release of the disclosed payments, but information obtained by Cageside Press shows that Gamebred Boxing was expecting to pay Perez $40,000 for his fight, which he won against Joe Riggs.
Riggs wasn’t listed by name in the doc, which makes sense since he wasn’t booked to fight until the week of the event, when Paul Daly pulled out of the fight with Perez. Daly was listed in the documents obtained as potentially earning $75,000 for the event. Theoretically, the apparent drop in wages may have resulted from renegotiations after Daley’s withdrawal, though this is speculation.
Neither Luis Feliciano nor opponent Clarence Booth are listed in the document despite being on the main card, fourth from the top. It was just fighting announce on March 2, thirty days before the event; A PnL document obtained by Cageside Press predates this.
Former UFC fighter Emily Whitmer is listed in the document as having paid $7,500 but not competing on the card and Andy Nguyen took her place against Bi Nguyen Late. Bi is mentioned in the document by name and the payment listed is the same as the number disclosed by the Wisconsin Commission.
Several other fighters are not listed by name under the “Pay Fighters” section of the document, but are assumed to have been counted under the umbrella term “Undercard Bouts”, which Gamebred Boxing lists as having a total expense of $50,000. This description seems to include fighters like Cade Howell, Mandeep Jangra and others who are not listed in the document and fought over the initial part of the card.
Cageside Press reached out to a Gamebred Boxing representative about these figures, but did not receive a response prior to publication.