The life of a BJJ professional is not like you would think. Most professional athletes at the top of their sport are all paid very well provided they do things correctly and we can say this for almost every profession in sports. The top 1% of any industry will always be paid very well because people will pay to see and learn from the best. Not only does the pay increase for winning at the best tournaments in the world, but there are also sponsorships and other income streams which often produce much more financial gains than simply competing.
If you are not in this top 1% you will not necessarily struggle, but it is certainly an uphill battle. You must find something to market yourself with or at least differentiate yourself from the competition. If you fail to do this then you will not earn much money from BJJ at all.
Being a professional BJJ competitor is not like a normal job and often will not come with a normal salary. There will be ups and downs with highs and lows of income, potentially this could even be affected by a referees decision at a tournament. A negative outcome could cost you thousands of dollars.
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Money From Competitions
Money earnt from winning a competition or a superfight is difficult to keep track of, since some tournaments do not disclose their prize pools and secondly, superfights almost always don’t.
This study from BJJHeroes in 2016 does not show a very good image of professional grappling at all. When we look at the list we can see the TOP earning competitor won only $83000 in one year from competitions. If we compare this to other individual sports (team is not fair since there are often franchises with massive marketing budgets), we can see Roger Federer earned $7.8 million from not a particularly successful year and Phil Mickelson earned $2.9 million. This is a very stark contrast to BJJ with Federer earning almost 100x the amount of Felipe Pena.
As we can see from the data, you should NOT want to earn a living from BJJ competitions or superfights. The training for these events is immense and the payoff for the win alone is not good at all.
Money From Sponsorships
This is where things become more interesting. Due to winning the competitions, you will be offered brand endorsements, advertisements and affiliations with various products. It is not uncommon for even low level competitors to get free gi’s and rashguards from a well-known brand. Whilst this isn’t going to pay your bills, it will at least reduce your outgoings to some extent.
In the previous example we saw Federer and Mickelson earn almost $8 million and $3 million respectively. Their endorsements during this period were $60 million and $50 million. By using the same logic as before, if endorsement deals were also 100x less in BJJ, that would mean Pena could have earnt around $500 000 for sponsorship deals in 2016.
Personally I do not think it would be this high, but I do think it could be near half of this, $250 000 is not a bad salary at all, but for the best in the world this is actually not good at all in my opinion.
However, with the growing popularity of apps such as Instagram, it is becoming easier than ever to advertise products to your legions of followers and earn money from doing so. This is probably a trend that will increase as time goes on, with earnings mimicking the increase.
Seminars & Affiliates
Perhaps this is the best way to earn money in BJJ as a competitor. We will disregard owning your own school at this moment, as I think if you’re a full time competitor at the top level this is almost impossible to run at the same time. Whilst your name might be affiliated with a certain school now, or in the future due to your results, it is not a good idea to travel the world whilst trying to run a business in your home town.
Affiliates are probably the hardest to value since the information is kept very hidden. I have no idea what a school might pay the likes of Gordon Ryan if his name was to be linked with them. However, if you are to open your own brand of schools you can collect at least $500 per month from each one, with this amount likely to increase in the future.
Seminars are one of the real gravy trains in BJJ. These will typically pay anywhere from $500 – $4000 depending on how many people show up. On a rare occasion, I have heard them being even higher than this, although it’s not common.
This is a lot of money for a few hours work, but we must factor in things such as travel and possibly hotels. For example, if a well-known grappler went to South Korea to perform 5 seminars for $3000 each, this would be $15000, however, with flights and travel expenses, this amount could easily turn in to $10000 for 10 days work. It’s still a great income but not as great as it first looked.
We must also remember to factor in taxes, and perhaps even the legality of going to another country to work for a few days. It is not as simple as things seem.
Instructional Videos & Apps
This once again can be a great earner for the top level athletes. Once again, earnings are not public since there is no benefit to the athlete in making their income public knowledge. We have heard rumors that in 2019 Gordon Ryan earned anywhere from $250 000 – $500 000 from selling instructional videos. Based on his massive success this is entirely possible and I wouldn’t doubt these numbers at all.
Even at the lower levels of instructionals and BJJ Apps, it could certainly be possible for some lesser-known competitors to make a good $30 000 per year from these avenues, which is a very good income considering the video may have only taken a few days to shoot at most.
However, with all this being said, online instructionals are still very new to BJJ and could still be disrupted by things like piracy. Whilst I don’t think this has a massive chance of happening, it could be a concern if this was your only income and virtually disappeared overnight if these videos were made available for free.
Summary
In short, your salary as a BJJ competitor is going to vary massively based on your success and marketability. These are the two main things and both cannot be overlooked.
In modern times it is possible to earn around $1 million per year. If you are the absolute best in the world at grappling and also getting sponsorship deals, seminars and instructional videos released.
Lower down the food chain, at the international level if you are placing around the top 3 in solid IBJJF competitions, it is possible to make near $100 000 per year, but you must get the marketing aspect correct.
There are people who have won very big titles who you will not have heard of. They have not made money simply because they cannot market themselves well – This is really quite sad. If you have the ability to be one of the best in the world at grappling, you must also focus on monetization as you cannot compete forever. Eventually, the sponsorship opportunities will dry up and so will your money making opportunities.
