New Delhi: The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) on Thursday agreed to a settlement of $375m concerning the former fighters over one of the two class-action legal cases. The case, which still progresses, is affecting about 1200 former UFC athletes as TKO Group, the parent company of UFC, decided to finally pay the amount to ex-fighters after a previous agreement was rejected by a Nevada district judge.
The former fighters’ group is claiming that the contracts of UFC suppressed the abilities of athletes to negotiate other promotional options. The TKO Group had earlier tried settling this lawsuit with $335m but Judge, Richard Boulware said that the figure was too low.
The TKO Group released a statement saying, “While we believe the original settlement was fair – a sentiment that was also shared by Plaintiffs – we feel it is in the best interest of all parties to bring this litigation to a close.” The statement was regarding the Cung Le case which has come to terms with the company, as Le filed the lawsuit back in 2014, but the court is yet to approve the terms.
The court set a new date of February 3, 2025, and the settlement will have to be signed off by the judge now. It is noteworthy that the anti-trust legal cases had sought up to $1.6 billion in damages.
The two cases
The former UFC fighters have been fighting two different court cases, one filed by Le and Nate Quarry in 2014 which represented the fighters competing from 2010 to 2017, and a second filed by Kajan Johnson in 2021 which represents fighters from 2017 to the present. In 2023, the UFC merged with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) to form the TKO Group.
The claim from 2014 alleged that the UFC attempted to acquire and maintain monopsony power (only one buyer or client) in the market for the services of elite professional MMA fighters. The UFC is yet to reach an agreement with Johnson as TKO Group said the case is “in very early stages, and a motion to dismiss the complaint remains pending.”
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