Ex-UFC Athletes to Receive Nearly $400 Million in Class Action Lawsuit

TKO Group Holdings, the parent company of UFC, will pay former UFC stars nearly $400M after settling two lawsuits alleging that the MMA organization violated antitrust laws. TKO disclosed the settlement in an SEC filing on Wednesday morning.

Zuffa, the corporation which owned and operated UFC, was named as the defendant in five class action lawsuits filed between December 2014 and March 2015. In June of 2015, the cases were consolidated into one. A second lawsuit was filed in 2021. Each of the suits alleged that Zuffa had paid UFC fighters much less money than was initially agreed upon, and also went about eliminating or disparaging other MMA promoters.

Fighters Cung Le, Nate Quarry, and Jon Fitch were the first to file suit in 2014. Brandon Vera, Luis Javier Vazquez, and Kyle Kingsbury later joined the suit. In 2021, Kajan Johnson and C.B. Dollaway filed an antitrust suit against both Zuffa and Endeavor, alleging similar behavior on the part of UFC.

On March 13, TKO reached an agreement with all plaintiffs. The group will pay out a total of $335 million in installments over several years. “The terms will be memorialized in a long-form agreement and then submitted to the court for approval,” TKO said in its SEC filing.

In a similar filing from February 27, TKO reported to the SEC that it had settled a similar 2022 lawsuit to the tune of $20 million. In that case, MLW Media alleged that WWE had interfered with various MLW contracts with media companies, as well as other anti-competitive practices.