UFC Antitrust Lawsuit: $375M Settlement, Payouts, and Delays

The UFC antitrust lawsuit settlement is a $375 million class-action recovery in Le v. Zuffa, LLC, approved on February 6, 2025, covering more than 1,100 fighters who competed in UFC-promoted bouts between December 16, 2010, and June 30, 2017.¹ It ranks as one of the largest antitrust recoveries in professional sports history. As of April 2026, more than $237 million had been paid out to 984 fighters in 44 countries.²

What the Fighters Alleged

The case was filed on December 16, 2014, by Cung Le, Nate Quarry, and Jon Fitch, joined by complaints from Brandon Vera and Luis Javier Vazquez, and later consolidated before U.S. District Judge Richard F. Boulware II in Las Vegas.³ The fighters claimed Zuffa, LLC had illegally acquired and maintained monopoly power by buying up or crushing rivals such as World Extreme Cagefighting, Pride Fighting Championships, and Strikeforce, then using its dominance to lock fighters into long-term exclusive contracts that suppressed their pay.⁴

At the class certification stage, Judge Boulware wrote that the UFC had demonstrated a “clear intent to acquire and maintain monopsony power” and that fighters were “trapped by Zuffa’s exclusionary contracts and their restrictive terms.”⁴ Gray Maynard, a two-time UFC title contender in the class, said that despite headlining pay-per-view events he was locked into a $42,000-per-fight contract and worked construction to make ends meet, once remodeling a house the morning before fighting Nate Diaz on pay-per-view that evening.¹

Who Is Covered

The settlement covers the certified “Bout Class”: everyone who competed in one or more live professional UFC-promoted MMA bouts taking place or broadcast in the United States between December 16, 2010, and June 30, 2017.⁵ A separate proposed “Identity Class” tied to fighters’ likeness rights was denied.

Fighters who competed only after June 30, 2017, are not part of this settlement. Their claims are the subject of separate, still-active lawsuits described below. Of the 1,121 eligible class members, 1,088 filed claims, a 97% participation rate.⁶

How Individual Payouts Were Calculated

Payouts run on a two-part formula. Seventy percent of the net fund (about $175.8 million) was allocated according to each fighter’s total UFC event compensation during the class period. The remaining 30% (about $75.3 million) was divided based on the number of bouts each fighter had. In practical terms, a fighter received roughly 32.7% of their total UFC pay from the class period, plus about $14,179 per bout.⁷

That formula produced a wide range of individual checks:

Highest payout: $10.3 million to Anderson Silva.
Second highest: an estimated $9 million for Conor McGregor.
Third highest: an estimated $6 million for Ronda Rousey.
Average payout: $230,792.
Median payout: $85,949.
Minimum payout: $16,122, for a fighter with a single bout.⁷

The six named plaintiffs (Le, Fitch, Quarry, Vera, Vazquez, and Kyle Kingsbury) also each received a $250,000 service award on top of their class share for their role in the decade-long case.⁸

What Came Out of the Fund Before Fighters Were Paid

The $375 million fund accrued an additional $6.6 million in interest before distribution. Court-approved deductions included $115.2 million in attorneys’ fees (about 30.72% of the fund), $9.6 million in litigation expenses, $1.5 million in service awards to the named plaintiffs, and various taxes and administrative costs.⁹ The net fund available to fighters totaled $251,102,249.54.⁷

The reason the settlement is $375 million and not the earlier reported $335 million is that Judge Boulware rejected the first proposal, announced in March 2024. That deal would have bundled the Le case with a separate action, Johnson v. Zuffa, covering fighters from July 1, 2017, forward. The judge concluded the dollar amount was insufficient and that the bundled deal left “no room for injunctive relief,” meaning the UFC would not have had to change any business practice going forward.¹⁰ The parties came back in September 2024 with a revised deal of $375 million for the Le class alone, leaving the Johnson claims for future litigation.¹¹

Payment Status and Delays

As of April 2026, more than $237 million had been disbursed to 984 claimants in 44 countries, or over 90% of eligible fighters.²

Payments to some fighters remain held up for two reasons. Ten fighters face unresolved disputes over who should receive the funds: competing claims from spouses, taxing authorities, or child-support obligations, and situations where a fighter died without a will. A more complex issue affects 28 fighters who live in countries subject to U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions, which prohibit transferring funds to those locations. The settlement administrator has said resolving those cases will likely require court intervention.¹²

What the Settlement Did Not Resolve

The $375 million payment closes the books on the 2010–2017 class only. Three related antitrust cases against the UFC remain active before Judge Boulware, all naming Zuffa along with parent companies TKO Group Holdings and Endeavor Group Holdings as defendants.¹³

Johnson v. Zuffa, filed in 2021 by Kajan Johnson and Clarence Dollaway, covers fighters who competed from July 1, 2017, onward. The case has moved slowly around a UFC motion to dismiss filed in September 2021. In February 2026, the plaintiffs asked the court to enter default judgment as a sanction, alleging the defendants destroyed years of critical evidence and then spent months covering it up.³

Cirkunovs v. Zuffa, filed May 23, 2025, by Misha Cirkunov, targets fighters who signed UFC contracts containing arbitration clauses or class-action waivers, provisions the UFC began adding around 2021.¹⁴ The case asks the court to declare those clauses unenforceable. If they hold up, they could block future class-action antitrust claims by UFC fighters entirely.⁷

Davis v. Zuffa, filed May 29, 2025, by veteran fighter Phil Davis, takes a different angle. Davis has competed for Bellator and the Professional Fighters League rather than the UFC, and the case represents fighters who worked for rival promotions since July 2017. It alleges that the UFC’s monopolistic practices suppressed pay across the entire sport. Davis seeks only injunctive relief, including a provision that would let fighters terminate promotional contracts after one year, rather than money damages, and because there will be no jury, the case could move faster than the others.¹⁵

1
Cohen Milstein. $375 Million Antitrust Settlement Provides Life-Changing Money to UFC Fighters
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MMA Fighting. UFC Antitrust Lawsuit Payments Totalling Over $237 Million Paid to Fighters, Attorneys Reveal Reasons for Some Delays
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Joseph Saveri Law Firm. UFC Antitrust Litigation
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Cohen Milstein. Mixed Martial Arts Antitrust Litigation
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Justia. Le et al v. Zuffa LLC, Class Certification Order
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Berger Montague. UFC Antitrust Litigation
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Yahoo Sports. UFC Fighters Are Finally Getting Their Money: Antitrust Payouts Explained
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Berger Montague. Motion for Award of Attorneys’ Fees, Reimbursement of Expenses, and Service Awards
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Bloomberg Law. UFC Ex-Fighters Get Final Approval of $375 Million Settlement
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Courthouse News. Judge Grants Final Approval of $375 Million UFC Antitrust Settlement After Decadelong Battle
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TKO Group Holdings. UFC Issues Statement Regarding Development in Le and Johnson Antitrust Lawsuits
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Berger Montague. Le et al. v. Zuffa LLC Settlement Fund Distribution Update
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ESPN. Veteran MMA Fighter Phil Davis Leading Antitrust Suit vs. UFC
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CBS Sports. Two Former UFC Fighters File New Antitrust Lawsuits Against Promotion
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Yahoo Sports. UFC Antitrust Threat Returns: Explaining the Two New Cases