INTERNATIONAL: The Ultimate Fighting Championship’s roughest fight could well play out in court over the next few years. The UFC has long dominated the world of Mixed Martial Arts and is one of the biggest televised sports in the world, but its efforts to swallow up the competition have now triggered a $5-billion lawsuit from those who claim an abuse of power.
Two long-time UFC veterans, Kajan Johnson and C.B. Dollaway, first filed a proposed class action anti-trust lawsuit in June last year. That lawsuit follows a bigger class action brought by six other former fighters. Both suits allege that the UFC has violated anti-trust laws by paying fighters far less than they were entitled to and eliminated or ruined other MMA promoters.
The $5-billion amounts to how much UFC fighters claim they’ve lost in potential earnings, pointing to the 50/50 split of profits seen in other sporting organizations like the NFL, NBA and NHL.
The UFC is reportedly planning to appeal the granting of class action status to the lawsuit and has also filed for a motion to throw out the case. If both of these attempts fail, then the UFC will probably seek an out-of-court settlement.
