Craig Jones recently issued a warning to his fellow BJJ competitors about signing exclusive contracts with some of the biggest promotions in the sport. This appears to be the next stage in his crusade to create better conditions for professional Jiu-Jitsu athletes, after he spearheaded the inaugural Craig Jones Invitational earlier this year. His main concern then was the state of pay for competitors, as the most prestigious tournament in the sport only offered a grand prize of $10,000 for each division’s winners. Not only did he offer more than that to every single athlete that set foot on the mat, but he also paid a million dollars to each of the division’s winners.
Although that weekend was a huge success for Jones and CJI, it seems like he still feels that he has work to do in other areas of the sport too. He has his hands full as well, as Jones is still going to be working as a promoter as he prepares for the second edition of CJI in 2025. He’s still taken the time out to share a word of caution to other competitors on the topic of exclusive contracts too:
“Please, for the love of god, read your contracts. I cannot emphasise this enough. If a fight promoter sends you a contract, please take the time to read it. In other combat sports, they have the luxury of managers. Those managers will read the contracts, hopefully, and make sure you’re not being f**ked over just so they can f**k you over themselves. Nah, just kidding, but you need to read the contracts. The golden rule in business is to not trust the other party. Some of the least trustworthy people in all of business would be fight sports promoters. So please, if you don’t have a manager, read the contract yourself or find someone more intelligent than you to read the contract to make sure they’re not sneaking in any stipulations that you have not previously verbally agreed upon.”
Jones makes a great point here, that the vast majority of Jiu-Jitsu competitors don’t have the kind of team around them that other professional athletes do. Without a proper manager, it can be tough to know what the best course of action is. Jones was also willing to share some important insight that all competitors should bare in mind when signing an exclusive contract:
“Don’t be tricked by branding or brand association. If any organization is trying to sell you the value of being attached to their name, they’re trying to f**k you. They’re trying to pay you less money because they’re talking about the worth of the association with them. I know plenty of people with names and faces on posters that have no money at all. That’s the worst position to be in in life, is to be famous and people think you have money but you really have no money.”
This is actually a pretty common occurrence in the professional MMA world, as a number of elite fighters have retired without much to their name at all. This isn’t a problem that disappeared when the sport grew and fighter pay improved either, many of the current generation of fighters have to make a series of good investments and develop other businesses in order to maintain a good income after retirement. With Jiu-Jitsu being significantly less popular, the pay is even lower and those business opportunities are even fewer. An exclusive contract can hamstring an athlete, and Jones recommends working out exceptions to that rule if you are tempted to sign one:
“Everything in life is about leverage, just ask Jeffrey Epstein or P Diddy. You have the ability to negotiate the terms of your contract. If they offer you 100% exclusivity, don’t be afraid to suggest a caveat in there that would allow you to participate in certain special events. Whether that’s a charity, whether that’s an event that’s gonna grow the sport massively. You have the leverage to stipulate that in your contract. Don’t be like Mike, if you don’t ask you will not receive and you will be forced into 100% exclusivity.”
The ‘Mike’ he’s alluding to in this statement appears to be Mikey Musumeci, who recently signed an exclusive contract with the UFC. That became a little more obvious with his next statement:
“Don’t grandstand about steroids while simultaneously signing contracts that allow organizations to monopolise the sport. That’s what we fought back against with ADCC; who were selling massive amounts of tickets, getting massive amounts of views, and not paying any of the athletes. We cannot allow sporting organizations to step into our sport after viewing the success of CJI and seek to monopolise it by locking everyone down into exclusive contracts and putting it behind a paywall. Our sport is not there yet. We’re just now touching and reaching the potential of the growth of the sport. It’s not the time to sign a deal with the devil and hold back the sport, while really only thinking about your bank account and not the bank accounts of every other athlete in the sport trying to make a living.”
Jones isn’t wrong here either, exclusive contracts have been used to restrict athletes in many other sports and that can only hold back the growth of BJJ in general. It’s worth remembering that Jones does have his own stake in this of course, because the sport’s biggest athletes being under exclusive contracts is not good for CJI. That doesn’t mean that anything he’s saying isn’t true though, and if he can reach enough of his fellow competitors then he might just be able to influence the wider state of the sport.
Craig Jones shared his concerns about exclusive contracts in BJJ in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
