Originally Posted by duckyou666

For starters, how is it even legal for Bellator to have a clause that says you have to take their contract if they feel like it matches a rivals offer? I understand the clause where they have time to match an offer. But..., how can they tell a fighter that they have to take their offer? I don't see what they're filing suit over. They made a competing offer, which they had 90 days to make, they made it. Why can't Alvarez just wait out the rest of the 90 days and sign with the UFC? I just don't understand the legality in their bitching.

Originally Posted by duckyou666

For starters, how is it even legal for Bellator to have a clause that says you have to take their contract if they feel like it matches a rivals offer? I understand the clause where they have time to match an offer. But..., how can they tell a fighter that they have to take their offer? I don't see what they're filing suit over. They made a competing offer, which they had 90 days to make, they made it. Why can't Alvarez just wait out the rest of the 90 days and sign with the UFC? I just don't understand the legality in their bitching.

There is no way that Bellator can decide what a fighter does after their employment contract has expired. It's not legally possible to have a clause that says, "You have to take our offer." Once the terms of a contract are met, that contract is over and done with. They made their offer, they can't force the fighter to sign it. Bellator is just sad that they won't be around in 2 years.

Originally Posted by OUSOONERSOU

Yeah it almost sounds like the restricted free agents in other sports. Restricted free agents the current team has a chance to match the offer, unrestricted they can sign with whoever...just in case you weren't familiar with American pro sports

Originally Posted by demoman993

I really feel bad for the guy. He just wants to fight and he has every right to try and maximize his earnings while he participates in a high level sport with very little forgiveness and a short life span (career wise). If he was offered, by the UFC, a 250k signing bonus, 75k to show 75k win bonus and a PPV cut then it will likely get ugly. Bellator probably matched the first 3 points, 250k signing, 75k show, 75k win and then probably said they would match the same PPV percentage. Unfortunately the PPV percentage isn't going to be an apples to apples comparison.

I pulled some random numbers off of SB Nation to compare numbers as far as live TV goes. I don't know how it translates to PPV but will work for comparison sakes.

The live prelims for UFC 154 on Saturday night and headlined by the Patrick Cote vs. Alessio Sakara fight, did 980,000 viewers on FX. That is the normal level the prelims to pay-per-view events have been doing since the 1.8 million number pulled by the UFC 148 prelims

Bellator is averaging 166,000 viewers this season with three live events remaining on MTV 2 before the January move to Spike

So using those numbers alone we can use them to compare if the contracts are lopsided. To make it easy lets say Eddie would make 1% cut of the PPV and $55.00 per buy for both companies. Keep in mind the 250k signing bonus is already paid by both sides and that I'm using average LIVE viewers and its prelims for UFC and main card for Bellator.

UFC - 980k buys - $539000

Bellator - 166k buys - $91300

That's a difference of $447700 per fight using these numbers, multiply that by the length of the contract and the potential difference in fight bonus money too (FOTN, SUB, KO).

If this is a semi-accurate comparison I would have to say that Bellator was trying to pull a fast one on Eddie but I guess we'll see what the courts say.

Not sure if this link works but here's where I got the info.

http://www.mmafighting.com/2012/11/2...shows-mma-news

Originally Posted by TheNinja

Bendo needs to shut his mouth... I love him as fighter.. But he signed his own contract, no one held a gun to his head. I can't stand guys that do this stuff. It reminds me of what Kevin Love has been doing all year for the T'Wolves in the NBA....

Originally Posted by ptw

Not saying Eddie would lose, but if his chances of winning are 90% in Bellator, and 60% in the UFC...stay in the small leagues and keep racking up a name for yourself and get a better deal, **** it.

Originally Posted by duckyou666

I get that. But..., but the restricted free agent argument doesn't fit. There is no collective bargaining agreement, hence there is no exclusive negotiating, not legally. If Bellator and the UFC were different teams in the same league, I'd understand. The simple fact that there is no league that all the organizations belong to means that they can't restrict free agency. At least, I don't see how they could.