This article on the economics of CJI vs ADCC is part of our Craig Jones Invitational 2024 coverage. To get live results, play by play, and commentary, we’ll have a live updates article running all weekend.
Since Mexican ground karate expert Craig Jones announced his eponymous Craig Jones Invitational (CJI) several weeks ago, many fans have been critical of the fact that Jones is holding his grappling tournament the same weekend as the long-established ADCC World Championship – and just two miles away in Las Vegas, Nevada. These fans have questioned why CJI is not being held on a different weekend than ADCC; which would allow athletes to compete at both events and allow fans to fully enjoy each, seemingly maximizing the benefits for everyone and better growing the sport.
While it is fair to ask questions about the effectiveness of Craig Jones’ strategy, theory from labor economics supports his argument that deliberate disruption by CJI is needed to force ADCC to change its policies. If CJI is to accomplish its goal of improving athlete pay, it must financially threaten the ADCC by occurring the same weekend, siphoning away its athletes and audience.
While this direct competition between CJI and ADCC has upset and confused many, Jones argues that this disruption is necessary. Jones has been critical of the low prize money for ADCC competitors which, despite massive growth in the popularity of grappling, has remained stagnant for over two decades at $10,000 for first place in male divisions and half that for females. In contrast, the Craig Jones Invitational (a non-profit that will donate proceeds to charity) will be giving $10,001 to each athlete simply for showing up, not to mention the $1,000,000 to the winners of each division. The size of those paychecks and Jones’ ethical position on athlete compensation has led to an exodus of some of the world’s best grapplers from ADCC to CJI.
To understand why disruption is necessary to force ADCC to change, it is necessary to first recognize that athletes are workers. A worker is not just a man on an oil rig with a wrench: it is anyone who performs labor that benefits their employer in exchange for a wage. While being paid to play a sport is often derided as an easy way to earn a living, athletes nonetheless perform work so that their bosses, team owners, or event organizers can profit from their labor. While ADCC do not seem to be profiting from the event, there is still a lot of money to be earned for advertisers, streaming services, merchants, staff, and others.
Certain people walk away with a lot of money following the event, but the athletes who are doing the work that makes it all possible are not among that group. They are the performers who are bringing in the audience and putting their bodies on the line, risking potentially catastrophic injury, to provide a product to event organizers. In exchange, they are paid next to nothing if they are even paid at all.
Even if the organizers of ADCC are well-intentioned and operating at a loss themselves, the economic pressures of generating revenue on this scale can lead to decisions that are exploitative of the competitors. ADCC appears to reinvest any money earned beyond their costs into expanding the event in the future to grow the sport of grappling, but in prioritizing growth, they have neglected the athletes who make this all possible. This sort of exploitation is historically common for athletes.
Just a few months ago, in September 2023, athletes in the Spanish women’s soccer league were paid a minimum annual salary of only 16,000 euros ($17,100): barely above the country’s minimum wage. In response to this exploitation, players went on strike and won a 47% increase in their minimum salary after just six days of refusing to play. Labor strikes of this sort by athletes are fairly common around the world, including in the United States like the famous 1982 National Football League strike or the series of Major League Baseball strikes between 1972 and 1995.
Strikes work because athletes collectively withhold their labor to financially threaten their bosses. Technically speaking, to withhold labor is to exercise “structural power” – an economic term from power resources theory – as workers can leverage their key position as producers of value in the economic structure. The fundamental relationship between athletes and their bosses is that of an employee and an employer, so when athletes—like any other employees – band together and refuse to work, it threatens the ability of the business owners to profit.
Without the athletes, there is no event, and therefore no money to be made by owners and organizers. Additionally, if accompanied by a successful PR campaign, strikers can damage the reputation of their bosses leading to further financial losses. This is the necessary leverage that forces employers to make concessions and improve conditions for those doing the actual work.
Importantly, strikes require collective organization, and the “collective” aspect of this is key. For such an action to be successful, it must be coordinated, organized, and conducted as a cohesive group. Most individual athletes or employees are not powerful enough on their own to bring about change to an exploitative system. Those in charge have the power and the money, so only an organized group can effectively stand up to them and demand change. This is most frequently accomplished through unions or other formalized groups of workers and is termed “associational power” in labor economics.
When strikes fail, it is often due to a breakdown of this collective action. In the 1987 NFL strike, for example, teams hired droves of scab players to replace those on strike and big name stars like Joe Montana and Steve Largent eventually crossed the picket line and returned to work. As a result, the players gained nothing. When one person refuses to work, they get fired, but when everyone refuses to work, they get a seat at the bargaining table.
While CJI may not technically be a strike, there are enough similarities that the comparison is useful. CJI did not exist until Craig Jones decided to skip ADCC this year in protest over the low prize money. Athletes themselves, led by Craig Jones, have since come together to create and participate in CJI as an alternative event to pressure ADCC to change for the better. By taking part in a competing tournament scheduled for the same weekend, these athletes are exerting their structural power to force a change in athlete compensation. For all intents and purposes, the CJI is functioning similarly to a labor strike by threatening the reputation and finances of ADCC.
As such, the reason that the CJI must be held the same weekend as the ADCC is very simply that strikes only work when they are a true economic threat. Realistically, the CJI only has leverage if it steals away the audience and athletes and calls into question the reputation of ADCC. Grapplers have asked ADCC for more money for years, but nothing has ever happened because asking nicely is not an effective strategy: it fails to utilize leverage and the power that organized workers have.
Polite requests depend entirely on the good will of the powerful, and those in power have little incentive to grant concessions unless they are forced to do so. If CJI were to be held weeks or months after ADCC, it would no longer pose the same threat and the structural power these grapplers have would weaken. If athletes could compete at both events and fans could attend and stream each, ADCC would feel far less pressure to change, apart from whatever moral guilt that CJI could inspire. And in the face of millions of dollars in revenue, morality only goes so far…
Craig Jones’ strategy already appears to be working, both for better and worse. After receiving a death threat from Seth Daniels, member of the ADCC team, it seems clear that Jones has gotten under their skin. Additionally, rumours surfaced that ADCC was secretly offering certain athletes “show money,” presumably to head them off before they jump ship to CJI. ADCC has now stated, however, that all grapplers will receive $2,500 simply to participate, that women will earn equal prize money to men, and that there may now be seven figures worth of prize money on the table. These are all important victories for the athletes, and it is no coincidence that these concessions come in the wake of pressure from CJI.
Consistent with what one would expect from labor history and economic theory, CJI. going head-to-head with ADCC is proving to be an effective strategy by damaging their reputation and stealing away the athletes and audience. By effectively striking ADCC, grapplers have exerted their structural power to disrupt the status quo. Thinking in terms of power resources theory, grapplers could continue to build their power to push for even better treatment. Creating an official organization of grapplers, like a union or similar entity, would build out associational power and grant athletes further leverage.
As ADCC and others make concessions in the face of protest, athletes could then build on these past victories to exert “institutional power” by engaging in collective bargaining with event organizers for better contracts. The fourth and final form of power in power resources theory is “social power,” which comes through building coalitions with other organizations and earning the broad support of society. By successfully leveraging these four forms of labor power, athletes in the grappling world can win even more concessions. If the CJI can keep hitting ADCC in the wallet, grapplers will be well on their way to earning the paychecks that they deserve.
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