This article is part of our ADCC 2024 coverage. To get live results, play by play, and commentary, we’ll have a live updates article running all weekend.
Craig Jones has just leaked a voicenote allegedly from ADCC head organizer Mo Jassim confirming that, for the first time ever, the promotion will be providing guaranteed show money to athletes competing at ADCC 2024. Every grappler competing at the event will now apparently be guaranteed a bare minimum of $2,500 just to step on the mats, which is more than double what fourth-place finishers would have received in previous editions. It’s a huge improvement as far as compensation for competitors goes, even if it does still fall short of the $10,000 to show and million-dollar prize on offer at the Craig Jones Invitational.
Naturally Jones claimed credit for this new development at the end of the leaked audio by finishing with a picture of himself with ’Mission accomplished, good work’ playing. It’s hard to disagree with him too, as the Craig Jones Invitational has put huge pressure on ADCC over the last few weeks. The huge prize money on offer has obviously been attractive to competitors and several of the best grapplers on the planet have turned down their ADCC invites in order to compete there instead. This new gesture will no doubt go some way towards convincing those who are still undecided to remain with ADCC and it acts as a small reward for the grapplers who have chosen to continue competing at ADCC 2024.
Craig Jones shared the leaked audio allegedly from Mo Jassim that announces $2,500 in show money for athletes competing at ADCC 2024 in a recent post to his official Instagram account. A transcription of the audio can be found below:
“Hi guys, I wanted to go over one thing. So the prize money comes from Abu Dhabi, that’s an ongoing discussion. I’ve been doing it for a while and I’ll do my best, okay? With that said, there’s something I can do from our end. 2019 (and) 2022 was break-even, this one’s gonna be profitable. I don’t know how profitable it’s gonna be because we’re going crazy on the show, you guys will see in August, it’s gonna be out of this world. But my plan is to make sure that every athlete walks away with something. What that number is, as of now, I’m looking for $2,500 each. So everyone walks away with at least $2,500. Now if you win your division or something, you don’t get it. But at least everyone will get that minimum amount. It could be more, once I have the final numbers in I don’t mind bumping it up even higher. Just, that’s gonna be the bottom floor.”
