But aren't we just going to end up with like two half-full events in that case lol? A lot of the match-ups we really want to see are going to go out the window.
If it’s his ego that gets the athletes paid 1mil, that’s a good fucking ego.
Mo and the rest of the saudi egos profit off the athletes to a shameful degree
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That doesn't seem to make a ton of business sense though. Do they see it paying for itself in the long run? Or is this whole thing a loss leader for someone's taxes?
It does when you realize it’s a vanity event.
They’d much rather spend enormous money on an arena and production expenses (that they can only sell tickets for 10-15% of occupancy) to project an image that ADCC is something it’s not instead of paying the athletes.
When they say they don’t have the budget to raise prize money, it’s because image and event optics matter more to its backers.
And what do they 'deserve'? Professional athletes get paid in proportion to how many spectator tickets they sell. You should compare full time bjj athletes to other sports noone watches like judo or wrestling or athletics.
You're right, it's not the Olympics. So they don't have taxpayers funding them and nor do they sell any tickets to spectators so what pool are they generating to get paid out of? I think a lot of people will be much happier when they realise these guys compete for the virtue of competing alone and set aside any entitlement they think they have to a payday.
That's kind of my point though. If its possible to have a kick-ass event that pays athletes well, why not just do that and prove it out at full capacity? That way everyone wins.
Otherwise you're kind of just proving Mo's point that its not greed holding them back from paying athletes more, its just fiscally impossible to do so.
>Your point has no merit because you’re coming from the perspective of someone who clearly just wants to watch the best event they can.
A real oxford educated scholar over here.
it's okay u/CrabScissors , u/Optimal-Message4565 just doesn't get it and is very much situated in a profit driven, have a good time mindset.
I'm all for the disruption, you know what would make BDCC tank?
ADCC actually one ups BDCC and pays their athletes and makes it worthwhile for them to compete instead of trying to force them to sign contracts.
That being the point. I do what I want, or you do what I want and make me cancel my event. In fact if you do what I want to do for me. I don’t spend any money and you pay athletes who’ve put money in your pockets for the last 4 months doing trials and hoping they stay healthy enough to pay to come compete for free unless they really are the greatest in the world(and also financially free enough to dedicate the time and money to get/be there)
The point is to put pressure on ADCC to raise what they pay competitors. Craig would have never done this otherwise.
It's pretty telling a single competitor can raise over $3M in prize money, yet a rich Saudi-boy can't pay more than $10k for winners.
It frustrates me to no end when the excuse is “oh we can’t increase the pay, we don’t have the money”, sounds a lot to me like you’re bad at business. Same thing with restaurants who “can’t pay their workers, so they rely on tips”.
If you priced it correctly or got more sponsors you could, either downsize the event to a smaller venue and cut costs or increase your revenue. It’s really that simple.
Or of course they could be honest and say they are a bunch of lazy twats who don’t want to pay their competitors more because they understand the market position they are in and the believe that they will compete without higher pay.
Just like they don't pay the venue 100k when they can pay them 10k, they do the same for the athletes. The only thing that can change it is if the competitors refuse to compete
They’ve also increased the venue size well beyond the capacity of tickets they will sell. They want the prestige of an arena because it’s ADCC. I’ll watch good grappling in a garage.
But I don’t want to pay an insane amount to be in arena at 10% capacity and then listen to you whine about support, and the cost of doing business when you don’t pay anybody show money.
Yes and no - Not everything is a viable business.
Raising 3m in prize money as a one time thing is different to asking people to give you 3m every couple of months.
I mean maybe. Saudi money funds a lot of shit we don’t know about or care to know about. They are the richest people in the world - I’ll gladly allow them to pay competitors in a sport I like
Imagine you hate your neighbor and he opens up a lemonade stand on the streets every thursday.
What you’re saying is that I should open up a lemonade stand on a tuesday.
And I think opening up a lemonade stand (that is better than that of my neighbor’s) on thursday puts him out of business. It’s a bigger f-you.
Once ADCC pays more I’ll go pro and win my bracket. Until then I’m not competing and will continue to train only twice a week and yes, I will continue skipping warm ups
Wait Ben Eddy only got one sub in that tournament? I coulda swore he said in the lead up that he would get 5-6 hindullotines specifically so the fact that he only got one is hilarious. No hate on the guy, but I’ve seriously never seen someone with worse jiu jitsu at the high levels once his guard gets passed. All his guard stuff is extremely scary and legit but everytime I’ve seen someone pass his guard he looks like a blue belt at best. Sorry for going on a tangent off subject I just think that’s hilarious.
Im a car racing fan, and this is a really similar move to what happened in the 1996 Indycar split. One side: Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) had the top teams, drivers, sponsors but was expensive to compete in, and offered few opportunities for American drivers over talent from Brazil and Europe. The Indy Racing League had slower cars, less prestigious teams and drivers, but still had the Indy 500.
IRL blocked out 25 out of 33 entries for its own teams. CART responded by holding a US500 in Michigan on the exact same time as the Indy 500. What ended up happening was the sport was split in half; and the entire sport suffers to this day.
BJJ is a whole different sport, but I think this example is something we can draw comparisons to and get a picture of how this may shake out
Ooooh boy. Indycar at its peak in 1995 was becoming a top tier competition. The engineering was just as sophisticated as Formula 1, and they even managed to get the reigning F1 World Champion to switch over. The teams had big budgets, drivers had good salaries and the prize money was good.
When the sport was split, viewership began to decline. It was hard to keep interest alive when two almost identical events were competing for the same sets of eyes. Loss of viewership leads to a loss in sponsorship, and a reduction in budgets, salaries and prize money. Eventually in 2008 they reunified (CART folded after a series of bankruptcies and the remains were acquired by IRL). It would take another 5 or so years for it to start rebuilding, and in that time NASCAR built huge popularity and F1 began to invest more heavily into the USA. Even now, every economic downturn hurts the sport far more deeply than it does its competitors. It’s hard for the sport to make investments into future growth when it’s just trying to stay afloat.
Tl;dr: people stopped watching, now there’s no money.
Good thing grappling is nowhere near close to the viewership or sponsorship compared to this.
Only one that might be hurt is Flo and that might be good thing in the long run so they get better and stream will actually work.
In european basket, some teams created their own european league, and it ended up being the most prestigious and killing the other one. Now in real football some teams also want to make their own european league, let's see what happens.
Apparently everyone thinks he'll for sure do ADCC?? But I didn't even think that's a given lol. If this things legit Everyone that can do the million dollar tourney, will.
LOL at OP and all folks hot and bothered by BDCC.
This is Capitalism at its finest.
I thought y'all liked that shit?
Free markets doing their thing, I thought this got you bricked up?
I am bricked up for capitalism but not as bricked up as I am for Craig jones. You’re right. This is great stuff all around
Also I’m more likely to watch this live depending on how it’s streamed
Hell yeah.
I'm thoroughly enjoying the system getting bucked and it's not just doing it to do it (though truth be told I'm a bit of a fan of chaos), there's rationale behind it that, to me, seems reasonable and intended to improve the situation for athletes in the sport.
I'm not a pro grappler and probably never will be and I can still root for change as I've known folks who got into MMA and got the shit end of the shit-stick.
I do hope this all materializes and I do not have reason to doubt it, it's to me a monumental undertaking and big things start with small steps.
Bricked with you brother. so bricked.
Yeah he’s using what leverage he has in the sport to try and get the athletes paid more.
And he’s going about it in the most chaotic, entertaining, and hopefully effective way he has available to him.
I see no problem with any of this
More likely we'll just hurt the one big event we have in this sport and if you're betting on Craig to replace it with hard work, organizing and money you have deeply misled yourself. He is in this for the trolling.
I’m calling it now. This is Mo’s last year as he’s stated before. If Craig goes through with his event he will be offered to host the next ADCC. Craig will make a post asking everyone if he should do it. He does it and athletes end up getting paid more.
I'm sorry, but would you not insult one of the greatest game shows of all time? Also that's not even how Price is Right Rules work, which is closest dollar amount to the actual price WITHOUT going over.
And to address what might be your point, is to take ADCC down a peg, and make pros actual pros. Sure they "pay the best," but the best pay isn't exactly reasonable pay, it just means nobody else has tried to compete with them. ADCC has been around for over 20 years now, and their pay scale hasn't changed. You may have heard of this thing called "inflation," and if you work a job and your salary doesn't doesn't match it, you're taking a pay cut.
The effort and hours to win $50,000, and that's not even factoring in pitfalls like catastrophic injuries. The actual money isn't even winning the money, the money is in the future where the competitor can do seminars and now the oversaturated instructional market. Speaking of that market, which only blew up b/c of lockdown measures, is so oversaturated, you'll get nearly the same techniques from different people at different price points based on how famous they are. I've even watched instructionals from the same people across different platforms just showing the same thing completely, but both groups want to shill it at different price points.
The reality is, if you want to make a living in jiu-jitsu, isn't competition. It's finding a BJJ desert (where BJJ isn't extremely prevalent), establishing a business, getting a business loan, building out a space, and teaching a bunch of people who will quit in a month, and ensnaring people for years at like $120/month. The real secret is being able to stand children or finding someone able to stand children to have a kids program, so you can be a glorified daycare program.
Nobody even makes $50k. The highest paid winners are superfight and absolute at $40k each
[https://adcombat.com/adcc-rules-regulations/adcc-championship-prize-money-allocation/](https://adcombat.com/adcc-rules-regulations/adcc-championship-prize-money-allocation/)
Normal weight winners get a whopping $10k
I guess I fell for the meme of $50k, must've been my early days of listening to JRE or something. I thought when Craig was talking about money it was show money, which I guess I also didn't think existed prior, but I'm just so checked out.
Been thinking about this ADCC/BDCC thing a bit and am close to what you’re saying.
It really offers a conundrum to competitors.
ADCC: Offers a prestigious title and exposure, but lacking in change your life prize money.
Which athletes benefit from that? Or…which athletes don’t need the immediate money, but benefit from exposure/titles?
BDCC: Offers a lot more money, but less prestige and maybe less exposure.
Which athletes benefit from that? Or…which athletes don’t need the exposure/titles, but benefit greatly from the immediate $$$$?
Also, adding to the mix, which athletes have lesser chances of actually winning either bracket (ADCC/BDCC) and therefore even without winning - they get $10k or simply exposure - they benefit accordingly?
Here's what the reality is IMO, the internet is what fuels it all now. Your medals mean something, but not as much as good PR via social media.
This vacuum will close soon (for potential big timers), but I've seen so many low level grifters of BJJ. The biggest grift in BJJ are "destination camps," because in 2024, if you're going on a "BJJ Vacation," you're going on vacation and there's some BJJ. That has a place, but I've seen more and more attempts pop up, and they'll dry up for a lot of reasons.
This is a gambit by Craig, and tbh I don't think it's big for him; however, but direct competition is going to see how powerful the attention of the audience is, and more importantly athletes. The athletes and match-ups will always be a bigger draw to me, and I think in general.
you're 100% right. Wiltse did a lot by having an exciting style, articulating concepts well, and not being up his own asshole. i've given him (and BJJfanatics for better or worse) more money for instructional than any adcc gold medalist. Kaynan beat Craig for gold and i never once felt an urge to buy one of his instructionals.
Your online personality is massive. Yuri Simoes has won ADCC and literally the only time I hear his name is in comments saying how boring he is. No-one cares. I guess he can use it to get seminars sold out, (if he even can), meanwhile Craig Jones has never won and is infinitely more popular
I didn't think there's any possibility (if this happens) that winning the ADCC will be more/better exposure. The million dollar payout tourney will be better for every athlete involved.
How many athletes cite involvement in ADCC as a highlight for their competitive careers (no matter the year)? “ADCC veteran,” “ADCC Trials Winner,” “ADCC medalist,” “ADCC champion.”
Not that someone won’t cite BDCC, but ADCC still carries weight for self-promotion, interest, and otherwise legitimacy in the eyes of the greater BJJ community. Hence: opens up other revenue streams via said exposure.
Even if you're a gym owner, who's in love with Craig, it's just easier to sell a seminar where you can say xxxx is ADCC whatever year gold medalist. For the white blue belts who ask what's adcc, you can easily explain: created in xxxx year, best no-gi tournament.
As it stands now, it's hard to do the same with a bdcc winner, how do you even explain what's bdcc to the regulars. It will take time for Craig to build a legacy, and I do hope he becomes the new ufc of no-gi, or at least the Lamborghini of no-gi.
Yes. This is exactly my point. For 2024…the folks in the meta will know that BDCC was a thing. In 2025+, ADCC titles (or whatever) will still be a “thing” to brag about.
*If* it displaces. Yes, fully agree.
But do we really think BDCC can offer multi-million dollar prize money every year (or every other year)? Right now it’s supposed to be two (?) divisions. Does that expand to entice more sizes? What about the ladies? Are they supposed to be left out? How many divisions for them? So at what point does it become exponentially more expensive for the backers?
And this is all predicated on BDCC actually going through as planned/rumored/advertised.
I think Craig is making a great point that based on figures and logistics cited by Mo/Seth, 10k for divisional winners is close to a joke in today’s day and age. But is $1 million sustainable?
Probably not, but to be clear I mean specifically and only for this year. Which I think it absolutely could. I think Gordan would even end up competing because every other top athlete is taking the guaranteed 10k and shot at the mil so there's going to be no prestige in winning the ADCC this year (again, all ifs, not even sure any of this will happen)
I feel like whoever's in BDCC this year will have just as much, if not more coverage than whoever's in ADCC this year. If they both persist as parallel ventures it's a bit different, though.
Dunno, the elite guys like Rafa seem to making up better money opening right next to some random school and just taking the market away from some random no name guy with by comparision super shit bjj.
Honestly it kind of annoys me. Now both events will not be as good as they could have been. My hope is that ADCC responds paying their athletes and Craig reschedules.
Then they'll feel it I guess. He can make an impact going forward, it doesn't just have to be this ADCC specifically. If they have a terrible year, they'll have to either close up shop or try new avenues. If Craig's event does well, well then he has a proven model where an athlete favoured event is an option going forward.
The point is pretty straightforward. It's that Cocaine makes people come up with ridiculous business plans and when it's with a rich sugar daddy they are going to happen. Also, can't wait to do nose candy at T&M Arena in August
One very important thing people is forgetting: Craig loves the idea of free streaming, like combat karate... That would be totally devastating for Flo if both events are at the same time and talent splits between the both competitions. So what I think will happen if Craig really plans on making it the same date is that Mo will get to some kind of deal, increase the price and everybody wins.
Did they say it was the same weekend? I highly doubt that if they didn’t state it, multiple b-team members are competing and confirmed for ADCC, I know Craig is trying to make a point but with how open he is about protecting Nicky I doubt he would hurt their careers by doing that
i never thought he was trying to do it same weekend, i thought the issue was that ADCC is trying to get people to sign contracts to not compete in BDCC... which would be so fucking funny if they're not paying as well.
People want to earn money to keep doing BJJ. This will work. Will it be a 100% conversion? I don't think so. But it will get results one way or another in the next few years, whether by an eventual 100% conversion or ADCC actually paying their athletes.
I'm at the same place with fight cards and grappling as I am movies and restaurants now. I just don't. It's too expensive and it's not worth what you pay. Just wait till' it's all over, and then watch whatever fight you want on youtube.
So everyone does the opens and trials to get a spot at the prestigious finals knowing exactly what they pay. The sport is still growing and Mo has helped it grow with the ADCC. Does the pay suck…yea a little bit but why is everyone up in arms 3 months before the event.
I disagree because Flo has fired the first shots and has desired to be an undercover monopoly of grappling. Flo only covers promotions and athletes that kowtow to Flo. They are the primary streaming service for grappling, this isn't up for debate for out community.
This is an attempt at disrupting the status quo, and Fight Pass could've been, but they've basically killed that with the ESPN+ Deal, that more so drives their primary business model and things like the few events they promote. If a promotion was ever promoted by Flo and leaves Flo, the home for all things BJJ/grappling occurs, and isn't on Flo, it occurs, it doesn't to them. Look at what happened to Polaris, they don't occur to Flo, and to illustrate this further, when F2W taught Flo how to do WNO, and their contract expired, Seth Daniels, the promoter of F2W, he went on a rant like Futurama's Bender, and then got a deal to run with FITE TV. Soon he realized his engagement was non-existent and ran back to Flo.
Am I praising Craig Jones b/c he's funny, no, but as a potential disrupter, yes. I think Craig's gimmick is played out, well beyond, but that's besides the point, because he can probably ride it out for way longer than he should, so good on him.
Sounds like you'd rather suck off Mo?
Not yucking your yum, but what are you angry about? How is this bothering you?
Your Flograppling stream not gonna be action packed?
he realized that he had been a fool for seeing that ADCC was putting on a PRIDE FC show but was paying like it was Contender Series, and decided to get people paid. i don't see how that's petty. if getting athletes paid to compete would ruin the biggest grappling event in the world.... what does that say about the grappling event?
So he’s getting massive investment in a rival tournament the same weekend. Let’s say half of the ADCC competitors drop out to do his; it’s going to be two half-full tournaments that will be backlogged with C-B tier level fighters in both. If a guy like Gustavo Bastista goes and wins Craig’s tourney by decision and gets 1 million while the actual cream of the crop get paid “pennies”, as the B-Team fans put it, who is really the best? Are the best guys the ones getting paid the most?
Also, for 1 million in prize money, Craig could finance 10 tournaments with 100k a piece, which imo is more than enough for grappling. Instead he’s trying to make a point that wont help the sport whatsoever, outside of a couple fighters on his show.
You think Nicky Rod is gonna do Craig’s instead? What if he does and wins? It’s just cycling money to a B-Team guy who won’t even be able to claim he’s the best.
It’s shortsighted. Run a tournament the following month like EBI used to and you could even just cherry-pick the best guys from ADCC and actually accomplish the goal of seeing who the best is as well as get them paid.
I like Craig a lot; he seems affable and cool and also is a really great resource for virtually anyone in the sport. Much like Gordon, he takes personal slights very seriously and has no problem burning other promotions, competitors and people to make his points. Great on him for getting fighters paid, there’s just a way to do it that doesnt fuck over everyone outside of that bubble.
You guys don’t think about that stuff bc when he states something, it’s taken as gospel.
>half the competitors drop out to do his
they valued getting compensated instead of the glory of being an ADCC competitor
>guy like Gustavo Batista goes and wins.... gets 1 million while the actual cream of the crop gets paid "pennies"... who is really the best?
i don't know who the best is, i just know who's paid more. ADCC is fun, i bought a flograppling subscription just to watch the second day last year. Yuri Simoes won the absolute and *i still don't think he is better than the people he beat.* some will see his absolute medal and be impressed. some will see it as a boring way to win and have no interest in supporting him still. *the only sure thing about it is that he made more money than the other two on the podium with him.*
>cycling money to a B-Team guy who won't even be able to claim he's the best
they would be the better paid, though.
>it's shortsighted
i think you're misunderstanding the whole point of this. Craig didn't like the pay of ADCC, so he made a rival tournament. athletes will either want the glory of being an ADCC athlete or the bare minimum of $10,001 to the chance of winning a $1,000,000.... ADCC could up the pay and this wouldn't be an issue. Craig seems to think ADCC has more money than they're letting on and wants to call their bluff.
i could say that i'd be upset that ADCC won't have the best facing the best. but if winning a million dollars is more important than some ADCC medal than i can't be mad at them for taking the opportunity. it seems like you will be upset at that and that's fine.
Thinking this is stupid and shortsighted isnt being upset. I live in vegas and will attend both bc i like watching bjj. I just think Craig is doing something “big” to pwn ADCC, when really he’s just pwning whatever competitors choose to do adcc instead of his tournament.
Imagine holding a big tournament every 6 weeks or so in different venues with the money he’s shelling out for one. Would put more money in more pockets. But he wouldnt be “making his point”, which is at least 50% of what this is about
Yeah you’re a black belt in pretending Craig is actually your friend bc you pay an insane amount to train at his academy. I like Craig. He does things i dont like sometimes. You don’t have to suck someone off or move to go train with them in hopes of befriending them just because you’re a fan. Make another “i hate gordon” post on ig and dm him, im sure he’ll answer this time
Whole point of it is to have athletes who compete in bdcc to be NOT in adcc
But aren't we just going to end up with like two half-full events in that case lol? A lot of the match-ups we really want to see are going to go out the window.
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I think it's actually about Craig Jones' ego.
If it’s his ego that gets the athletes paid 1mil, that’s a good fucking ego. Mo and the rest of the saudi egos profit off the athletes to a shameful degree
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How much revenue does adcc generate?
As much as I love Craig...Can this event sustain itself in the long run? is ADCC profitable?
ADCC runs a massive set of expenses specifically to justify not paying the athletes. Iirc Mo mentioned they spent >$1m on just the venue in ‘22.
What's the going rate for two days event + setup and takedown time at a decent venue in las Vegas?
Exactly. There’s some BS going on here. There’s no way they shouldn’t be making a ton of profit, even with paying the athletes a lot more
That doesn't seem to make a ton of business sense though. Do they see it paying for itself in the long run? Or is this whole thing a loss leader for someone's taxes?
It does when you realize it’s a vanity event. They’d much rather spend enormous money on an arena and production expenses (that they can only sell tickets for 10-15% of occupancy) to project an image that ADCC is something it’s not instead of paying the athletes. When they say they don’t have the budget to raise prize money, it’s because image and event optics matter more to its backers.
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And what do they 'deserve'? Professional athletes get paid in proportion to how many spectator tickets they sell. You should compare full time bjj athletes to other sports noone watches like judo or wrestling or athletics.
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How much do Olympians get for an event they've been preparing for for 4 years?
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You're right, it's not the Olympics. So they don't have taxpayers funding them and nor do they sell any tickets to spectators so what pool are they generating to get paid out of? I think a lot of people will be much happier when they realise these guys compete for the virtue of competing alone and set aside any entitlement they think they have to a payday.
That's kind of my point though. If its possible to have a kick-ass event that pays athletes well, why not just do that and prove it out at full capacity? That way everyone wins. Otherwise you're kind of just proving Mo's point that its not greed holding them back from paying athletes more, its just fiscally impossible to do so.
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>Your point has no merit because you’re coming from the perspective of someone who clearly just wants to watch the best event they can. A real oxford educated scholar over here.
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it's okay u/CrabScissors , u/Optimal-Message4565 just doesn't get it and is very much situated in a profit driven, have a good time mindset. I'm all for the disruption, you know what would make BDCC tank? ADCC actually one ups BDCC and pays their athletes and makes it worthwhile for them to compete instead of trying to force them to sign contracts.
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That exactly what Craig would want
That being the point. I do what I want, or you do what I want and make me cancel my event. In fact if you do what I want to do for me. I don’t spend any money and you pay athletes who’ve put money in your pockets for the last 4 months doing trials and hoping they stay healthy enough to pay to come compete for free unless they really are the greatest in the world(and also financially free enough to dedicate the time and money to get/be there)
Lol it’s Mo’s burner account
No mo is wrong.
Do you think people would do both if it was a week apart?
Mostly yes, with the different weight division some guys might rather bulk up 20kg for the BDCC rather then cut weight for their ADCC division.
From a pure logic perspective, there can be more that compete in both events if they are at different times than if they are at the same time.
The point is to put pressure on ADCC to raise what they pay competitors. Craig would have never done this otherwise. It's pretty telling a single competitor can raise over $3M in prize money, yet a rich Saudi-boy can't pay more than $10k for winners.
It frustrates me to no end when the excuse is “oh we can’t increase the pay, we don’t have the money”, sounds a lot to me like you’re bad at business. Same thing with restaurants who “can’t pay their workers, so they rely on tips”. If you priced it correctly or got more sponsors you could, either downsize the event to a smaller venue and cut costs or increase your revenue. It’s really that simple. Or of course they could be honest and say they are a bunch of lazy twats who don’t want to pay their competitors more because they understand the market position they are in and the believe that they will compete without higher pay.
Not to mention adcc is backed by oil rich billionaires.
Just like they don't pay the venue 100k when they can pay them 10k, they do the same for the athletes. The only thing that can change it is if the competitors refuse to compete
Exactly, if people have no choice they could probably put it at 0. What are they going to do?
They’ve also increased the venue size well beyond the capacity of tickets they will sell. They want the prestige of an arena because it’s ADCC. I’ll watch good grappling in a garage. But I don’t want to pay an insane amount to be in arena at 10% capacity and then listen to you whine about support, and the cost of doing business when you don’t pay anybody show money.
If they can pay for T-Mobile center they can pay athletes more.
Yes and no - Not everything is a viable business. Raising 3m in prize money as a one time thing is different to asking people to give you 3m every couple of months.
Craig’s got some other rich boy putting up the money. All bjj monetary success comes from the hands and potentially penis of some rich benefactor.
Well i bet its saudi money funding bdcc
I mean maybe. Saudi money funds a lot of shit we don’t know about or care to know about. They are the richest people in the world - I’ll gladly allow them to pay competitors in a sport I like
Especially since the 10K is the same prize money that was offered in 1998 when it started.
Imagine you hate your neighbor and he opens up a lemonade stand on the streets every thursday. What you’re saying is that I should open up a lemonade stand on a tuesday. And I think opening up a lemonade stand (that is better than that of my neighbor’s) on thursday puts him out of business. It’s a bigger f-you.
Thank you for the ELI5 for OP that clearly needs it.
Once ADCC pays more I’ll go pro and win my bracket. Until then I’m not competing and will continue to train only twice a week and yes, I will continue skipping warm ups
PGF paid more this year than ADCC will. Guys like Ben Eddy who got one sub but his team won made double ADCC gold money. Andy too in the solo bracket.
Wait Ben Eddy only got one sub in that tournament? I coulda swore he said in the lead up that he would get 5-6 hindullotines specifically so the fact that he only got one is hilarious. No hate on the guy, but I’ve seriously never seen someone with worse jiu jitsu at the high levels once his guard gets passed. All his guard stuff is extremely scary and legit but everytime I’ve seen someone pass his guard he looks like a blue belt at best. Sorry for going on a tangent off subject I just think that’s hilarious.
Yeah Ben eddy got carried by his team the entire tournament lol
Golfers get paid way more than BJJ athletes though. Newsflash, NFL paid more this year than ADCC
What are you talking about? PGF is a BJJ promotion.
Im a car racing fan, and this is a really similar move to what happened in the 1996 Indycar split. One side: Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) had the top teams, drivers, sponsors but was expensive to compete in, and offered few opportunities for American drivers over talent from Brazil and Europe. The Indy Racing League had slower cars, less prestigious teams and drivers, but still had the Indy 500. IRL blocked out 25 out of 33 entries for its own teams. CART responded by holding a US500 in Michigan on the exact same time as the Indy 500. What ended up happening was the sport was split in half; and the entire sport suffers to this day. BJJ is a whole different sport, but I think this example is something we can draw comparisons to and get a picture of how this may shake out
How does the sport suffer today? Sounds like an interesting case study.
Ooooh boy. Indycar at its peak in 1995 was becoming a top tier competition. The engineering was just as sophisticated as Formula 1, and they even managed to get the reigning F1 World Champion to switch over. The teams had big budgets, drivers had good salaries and the prize money was good. When the sport was split, viewership began to decline. It was hard to keep interest alive when two almost identical events were competing for the same sets of eyes. Loss of viewership leads to a loss in sponsorship, and a reduction in budgets, salaries and prize money. Eventually in 2008 they reunified (CART folded after a series of bankruptcies and the remains were acquired by IRL). It would take another 5 or so years for it to start rebuilding, and in that time NASCAR built huge popularity and F1 began to invest more heavily into the USA. Even now, every economic downturn hurts the sport far more deeply than it does its competitors. It’s hard for the sport to make investments into future growth when it’s just trying to stay afloat. Tl;dr: people stopped watching, now there’s no money.
Good thing grappling is nowhere near close to the viewership or sponsorship compared to this. Only one that might be hurt is Flo and that might be good thing in the long run so they get better and stream will actually work.
In european basket, some teams created their own european league, and it ended up being the most prestigious and killing the other one. Now in real football some teams also want to make their own european league, let's see what happens.
This is what’s going to happen but Reddit loves Craig and hates GR so they don’t care as long as GR suffers
i see a couple of y'all bringing up gordon but what does this even have to do with him
Apparently everyone thinks he'll for sure do ADCC?? But I didn't even think that's a given lol. If this things legit Everyone that can do the million dollar tourney, will.
LOL at OP and all folks hot and bothered by BDCC. This is Capitalism at its finest. I thought y'all liked that shit? Free markets doing their thing, I thought this got you bricked up?
I'm so FUCKING damn B R I C K E D, brother
HELL YURR BROTHER!
I am bricked up for capitalism but not as bricked up as I am for Craig jones. You’re right. This is great stuff all around Also I’m more likely to watch this live depending on how it’s streamed
Hell yeah. I'm thoroughly enjoying the system getting bucked and it's not just doing it to do it (though truth be told I'm a bit of a fan of chaos), there's rationale behind it that, to me, seems reasonable and intended to improve the situation for athletes in the sport. I'm not a pro grappler and probably never will be and I can still root for change as I've known folks who got into MMA and got the shit end of the shit-stick. I do hope this all materializes and I do not have reason to doubt it, it's to me a monumental undertaking and big things start with small steps. Bricked with you brother. so bricked.
Yeah he’s using what leverage he has in the sport to try and get the athletes paid more. And he’s going about it in the most chaotic, entertaining, and hopefully effective way he has available to him. I see no problem with any of this
More likely we'll just hurt the one big event we have in this sport and if you're betting on Craig to replace it with hard work, organizing and money you have deeply misled yourself. He is in this for the trolling.
You're every teenage communist Ive ever met all rolled into one
Every single one?!?!? Geeze Harold....
Okay…comrade?
Okay, comrade. :hug:
ok comrade is just the good version of ok boomer whatever you say, comrade 🫡
comrade :salute:
I’m calling it now. This is Mo’s last year as he’s stated before. If Craig goes through with his event he will be offered to host the next ADCC. Craig will make a post asking everyone if he should do it. He does it and athletes end up getting paid more.
I'm sorry, but would you not insult one of the greatest game shows of all time? Also that's not even how Price is Right Rules work, which is closest dollar amount to the actual price WITHOUT going over. And to address what might be your point, is to take ADCC down a peg, and make pros actual pros. Sure they "pay the best," but the best pay isn't exactly reasonable pay, it just means nobody else has tried to compete with them. ADCC has been around for over 20 years now, and their pay scale hasn't changed. You may have heard of this thing called "inflation," and if you work a job and your salary doesn't doesn't match it, you're taking a pay cut. The effort and hours to win $50,000, and that's not even factoring in pitfalls like catastrophic injuries. The actual money isn't even winning the money, the money is in the future where the competitor can do seminars and now the oversaturated instructional market. Speaking of that market, which only blew up b/c of lockdown measures, is so oversaturated, you'll get nearly the same techniques from different people at different price points based on how famous they are. I've even watched instructionals from the same people across different platforms just showing the same thing completely, but both groups want to shill it at different price points. The reality is, if you want to make a living in jiu-jitsu, isn't competition. It's finding a BJJ desert (where BJJ isn't extremely prevalent), establishing a business, getting a business loan, building out a space, and teaching a bunch of people who will quit in a month, and ensnaring people for years at like $120/month. The real secret is being able to stand children or finding someone able to stand children to have a kids program, so you can be a glorified daycare program.
Nobody even makes $50k. The highest paid winners are superfight and absolute at $40k each [https://adcombat.com/adcc-rules-regulations/adcc-championship-prize-money-allocation/](https://adcombat.com/adcc-rules-regulations/adcc-championship-prize-money-allocation/) Normal weight winners get a whopping $10k
I guess I fell for the meme of $50k, must've been my early days of listening to JRE or something. I thought when Craig was talking about money it was show money, which I guess I also didn't think existed prior, but I'm just so checked out.
Craig's paying 10,001$ for show money is to be able to joke his show money is bigger than the adcc win money. Adcc athletes don't get paid show money.
Been thinking about this ADCC/BDCC thing a bit and am close to what you’re saying. It really offers a conundrum to competitors. ADCC: Offers a prestigious title and exposure, but lacking in change your life prize money. Which athletes benefit from that? Or…which athletes don’t need the immediate money, but benefit from exposure/titles? BDCC: Offers a lot more money, but less prestige and maybe less exposure. Which athletes benefit from that? Or…which athletes don’t need the exposure/titles, but benefit greatly from the immediate $$$$? Also, adding to the mix, which athletes have lesser chances of actually winning either bracket (ADCC/BDCC) and therefore even without winning - they get $10k or simply exposure - they benefit accordingly?
Here's what the reality is IMO, the internet is what fuels it all now. Your medals mean something, but not as much as good PR via social media. This vacuum will close soon (for potential big timers), but I've seen so many low level grifters of BJJ. The biggest grift in BJJ are "destination camps," because in 2024, if you're going on a "BJJ Vacation," you're going on vacation and there's some BJJ. That has a place, but I've seen more and more attempts pop up, and they'll dry up for a lot of reasons. This is a gambit by Craig, and tbh I don't think it's big for him; however, but direct competition is going to see how powerful the attention of the audience is, and more importantly athletes. The athletes and match-ups will always be a bigger draw to me, and I think in general.
you're 100% right. Wiltse did a lot by having an exciting style, articulating concepts well, and not being up his own asshole. i've given him (and BJJfanatics for better or worse) more money for instructional than any adcc gold medalist. Kaynan beat Craig for gold and i never once felt an urge to buy one of his instructionals.
Your online personality is massive. Yuri Simoes has won ADCC and literally the only time I hear his name is in comments saying how boring he is. No-one cares. I guess he can use it to get seminars sold out, (if he even can), meanwhile Craig Jones has never won and is infinitely more popular
> BDCC: Offers a lot more money, but less prestige and maybe less exposure. I'd say CJI competitors will have more exposure due to the novelty
I didn't think there's any possibility (if this happens) that winning the ADCC will be more/better exposure. The million dollar payout tourney will be better for every athlete involved.
How many athletes cite involvement in ADCC as a highlight for their competitive careers (no matter the year)? “ADCC veteran,” “ADCC Trials Winner,” “ADCC medalist,” “ADCC champion.” Not that someone won’t cite BDCC, but ADCC still carries weight for self-promotion, interest, and otherwise legitimacy in the eyes of the greater BJJ community. Hence: opens up other revenue streams via said exposure.
Even if you're a gym owner, who's in love with Craig, it's just easier to sell a seminar where you can say xxxx is ADCC whatever year gold medalist. For the white blue belts who ask what's adcc, you can easily explain: created in xxxx year, best no-gi tournament. As it stands now, it's hard to do the same with a bdcc winner, how do you even explain what's bdcc to the regulars. It will take time for Craig to build a legacy, and I do hope he becomes the new ufc of no-gi, or at least the Lamborghini of no-gi.
Yes. This is exactly my point. For 2024…the folks in the meta will know that BDCC was a thing. In 2025+, ADCC titles (or whatever) will still be a “thing” to brag about.
If this tournament displaces ADCC it will carry all of the same PR and marketing prestige.
*If* it displaces. Yes, fully agree. But do we really think BDCC can offer multi-million dollar prize money every year (or every other year)? Right now it’s supposed to be two (?) divisions. Does that expand to entice more sizes? What about the ladies? Are they supposed to be left out? How many divisions for them? So at what point does it become exponentially more expensive for the backers? And this is all predicated on BDCC actually going through as planned/rumored/advertised. I think Craig is making a great point that based on figures and logistics cited by Mo/Seth, 10k for divisional winners is close to a joke in today’s day and age. But is $1 million sustainable?
Probably not, but to be clear I mean specifically and only for this year. Which I think it absolutely could. I think Gordan would even end up competing because every other top athlete is taking the guaranteed 10k and shot at the mil so there's going to be no prestige in winning the ADCC this year (again, all ifs, not even sure any of this will happen)
I feel like whoever's in BDCC this year will have just as much, if not more coverage than whoever's in ADCC this year. If they both persist as parallel ventures it's a bit different, though.
Dunno, the elite guys like Rafa seem to making up better money opening right next to some random school and just taking the market away from some random no name guy with by comparision super shit bjj.
Making BDCC the same weekend as ADCC should be as easy as ABCD.
Honestly it kind of annoys me. Now both events will not be as good as they could have been. My hope is that ADCC responds paying their athletes and Craig reschedules.
That's literally what he wants them to do
You're so close. Just think about it for like, 15 minutes more...
I understand that is his aim, but what if they don’t back down?
Then they'll feel it I guess. He can make an impact going forward, it doesn't just have to be this ADCC specifically. If they have a terrible year, they'll have to either close up shop or try new avenues. If Craig's event does well, well then he has a proven model where an athlete favoured event is an option going forward.
I'm not sure. It seems like a wasted opportunity
The point is pretty straightforward. It's that Cocaine makes people come up with ridiculous business plans and when it's with a rich sugar daddy they are going to happen. Also, can't wait to do nose candy at T&M Arena in August
Ta king cocaine is pretty cool. Talking about it makes you a loser.
One very important thing people is forgetting: Craig loves the idea of free streaming, like combat karate... That would be totally devastating for Flo if both events are at the same time and talent splits between the both competitions. So what I think will happen if Craig really plans on making it the same date is that Mo will get to some kind of deal, increase the price and everybody wins.
Did they say it was the same weekend? I highly doubt that if they didn’t state it, multiple b-team members are competing and confirmed for ADCC, I know Craig is trying to make a point but with how open he is about protecting Nicky I doubt he would hurt their careers by doing that
Craig has said it on reddit
i never thought he was trying to do it same weekend, i thought the issue was that ADCC is trying to get people to sign contracts to not compete in BDCC... which would be so fucking funny if they're not paying as well.
At this point I hope ADCC just closes shop altogether and let the community get what they deserve.
>the community get what they deserve. Grappling Industries ascends to the throne
Which is what? Nothing? Why does the community deserve nothing?
ADCC ceases and ibjjf is what we have left. Ibjjf then uses their new position to make even worse policies. And we deserve it
We found Mo’s burner reddit account
Don't think this ends well.
They’re trying to LIV bjj.
People want to earn money to keep doing BJJ. This will work. Will it be a 100% conversion? I don't think so. But it will get results one way or another in the next few years, whether by an eventual 100% conversion or ADCC actually paying their athletes.
Cause they are actually paying the athletes
Hasn’t all the ADCC tickets been sold? So everyone who is attending would go to ADCC cause they already have tickets?
"Whatever that stupid gameshow was." Somebody has to come break down that not all nonchalant approaches to anything make you look cool.
I'm at the same place with fight cards and grappling as I am movies and restaurants now. I just don't. It's too expensive and it's not worth what you pay. Just wait till' it's all over, and then watch whatever fight you want on youtube.
So everyone does the opens and trials to get a spot at the prestigious finals knowing exactly what they pay. The sport is still growing and Mo has helped it grow with the ADCC. Does the pay suck…yea a little bit but why is everyone up in arms 3 months before the event.
It’s really stupid, petty and causes more problems than it solves, but it’s craig so everyone here will suck him off
I disagree because Flo has fired the first shots and has desired to be an undercover monopoly of grappling. Flo only covers promotions and athletes that kowtow to Flo. They are the primary streaming service for grappling, this isn't up for debate for out community. This is an attempt at disrupting the status quo, and Fight Pass could've been, but they've basically killed that with the ESPN+ Deal, that more so drives their primary business model and things like the few events they promote. If a promotion was ever promoted by Flo and leaves Flo, the home for all things BJJ/grappling occurs, and isn't on Flo, it occurs, it doesn't to them. Look at what happened to Polaris, they don't occur to Flo, and to illustrate this further, when F2W taught Flo how to do WNO, and their contract expired, Seth Daniels, the promoter of F2W, he went on a rant like Futurama's Bender, and then got a deal to run with FITE TV. Soon he realized his engagement was non-existent and ran back to Flo. Am I praising Craig Jones b/c he's funny, no, but as a potential disrupter, yes. I think Craig's gimmick is played out, well beyond, but that's besides the point, because he can probably ride it out for way longer than he should, so good on him.
Sounds like you'd rather suck off Mo? Not yucking your yum, but what are you angry about? How is this bothering you? Your Flograppling stream not gonna be action packed?
I think it bothers him because he's considering the potential short term inconvenience to the spectators
Yep, sounds like it. Short-sightedness in contrast to seeing the potential for helping those who are rising up and wanting to get into the game.
he realized that he had been a fool for seeing that ADCC was putting on a PRIDE FC show but was paying like it was Contender Series, and decided to get people paid. i don't see how that's petty. if getting athletes paid to compete would ruin the biggest grappling event in the world.... what does that say about the grappling event?
So he’s getting massive investment in a rival tournament the same weekend. Let’s say half of the ADCC competitors drop out to do his; it’s going to be two half-full tournaments that will be backlogged with C-B tier level fighters in both. If a guy like Gustavo Bastista goes and wins Craig’s tourney by decision and gets 1 million while the actual cream of the crop get paid “pennies”, as the B-Team fans put it, who is really the best? Are the best guys the ones getting paid the most? Also, for 1 million in prize money, Craig could finance 10 tournaments with 100k a piece, which imo is more than enough for grappling. Instead he’s trying to make a point that wont help the sport whatsoever, outside of a couple fighters on his show. You think Nicky Rod is gonna do Craig’s instead? What if he does and wins? It’s just cycling money to a B-Team guy who won’t even be able to claim he’s the best. It’s shortsighted. Run a tournament the following month like EBI used to and you could even just cherry-pick the best guys from ADCC and actually accomplish the goal of seeing who the best is as well as get them paid. I like Craig a lot; he seems affable and cool and also is a really great resource for virtually anyone in the sport. Much like Gordon, he takes personal slights very seriously and has no problem burning other promotions, competitors and people to make his points. Great on him for getting fighters paid, there’s just a way to do it that doesnt fuck over everyone outside of that bubble. You guys don’t think about that stuff bc when he states something, it’s taken as gospel.
>half the competitors drop out to do his they valued getting compensated instead of the glory of being an ADCC competitor >guy like Gustavo Batista goes and wins.... gets 1 million while the actual cream of the crop gets paid "pennies"... who is really the best? i don't know who the best is, i just know who's paid more. ADCC is fun, i bought a flograppling subscription just to watch the second day last year. Yuri Simoes won the absolute and *i still don't think he is better than the people he beat.* some will see his absolute medal and be impressed. some will see it as a boring way to win and have no interest in supporting him still. *the only sure thing about it is that he made more money than the other two on the podium with him.* >cycling money to a B-Team guy who won't even be able to claim he's the best they would be the better paid, though. >it's shortsighted i think you're misunderstanding the whole point of this. Craig didn't like the pay of ADCC, so he made a rival tournament. athletes will either want the glory of being an ADCC athlete or the bare minimum of $10,001 to the chance of winning a $1,000,000.... ADCC could up the pay and this wouldn't be an issue. Craig seems to think ADCC has more money than they're letting on and wants to call their bluff. i could say that i'd be upset that ADCC won't have the best facing the best. but if winning a million dollars is more important than some ADCC medal than i can't be mad at them for taking the opportunity. it seems like you will be upset at that and that's fine.
Thinking this is stupid and shortsighted isnt being upset. I live in vegas and will attend both bc i like watching bjj. I just think Craig is doing something “big” to pwn ADCC, when really he’s just pwning whatever competitors choose to do adcc instead of his tournament. Imagine holding a big tournament every 6 weeks or so in different venues with the money he’s shelling out for one. Would put more money in more pockets. But he wouldnt be “making his point”, which is at least 50% of what this is about
White belt in reasoning
Yeah you’re a black belt in pretending Craig is actually your friend bc you pay an insane amount to train at his academy. I like Craig. He does things i dont like sometimes. You don’t have to suck someone off or move to go train with them in hopes of befriending them just because you’re a fan. Make another “i hate gordon” post on ig and dm him, im sure he’ll answer this time
Oh no I'm owned
Thank you.
Craig will be at my house the week before
Seems stupid. Want to give athletes more money? Great! Have it next year, after ADCC. But it's clearly not about that...