Craig Jones has just shocked the BJJ world by revealing that CJI 2 is apparently on track to lose $800,000 by the time the event is over. Not only is that bad news for the promotion itself but it also raises questions about the sustainability of massive prize money in Jiu-Jitsu competition in general. The inaugural Craig Jones Invitational broke new ground by offering the biggest prize money in the history of the sport and it appeared to be a huge success. The viewership figures were absolutely huge and it was clearly popular among both spectators and competitors all around the world.
The first CJI also managed to raise half a million dollars for charity, covering all costs of the event and giving back on top of that. That made it seem as though this year was going to be a slam-dunk in terms of revenue, as the promotion also reduced the total winners’ prize money from two million to one million dollars for the second edition. If Jones’ statement is to be believed, something has gone very wrong somewhere along the way. Obviously there’s been a big change to the format with the switch to Quintet rules, but there’s still going to be plenty of elite matchups regardless.
On the surface it doesn’t seem like that change would account for CJI 2 being on track to lose money, but there’s been another big change in the promotional work that Craig Jones has done. A big part of the popularity of the first CJI was the epic rivalry with ADCC but with this being an off year for them, that rivalry is no longer a factor. Jones also put an end to that as far as the future is concerned too, as he revealed that CJI will not go head-to-head with ADCC again. It’s impossible to gauge exactly how important this was in terms of generating interest, but the fact that it had an effect is undeniable.
Now the majority of the promotional work is being built around the strength of the CJI 2 lineup, which is undeniably one of the best the sport has ever seen. According to Jones, this hasn’t been enough to sell the amount of tickets that he had hoped to by this point in time and they’re currently over 1,000 short of his goals. With CJI 2 going down in just under two weeks, there isn’t a lot of time left to close that gap either. Jones has already revealed plans for CJI 3 in 2026 but if they lose that amount of money this time around, it’s unclear what effect that would have on those plans.
Craig Jones revealed that CJI 2 was on track to lose $800,000 in a series of recent comments to the r/bjj subreddit:
