Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/257611 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Citation: 
[Journal:] International Journal of Financial Studies [ISSN:] 2227-7072 [Volume:] 7 [Issue:] 1 [Article No.:] 13 [Publisher:] MDPI [Place:] Basel [Year:] 2019 [Pages:] 1-11
Publisher: 
MDPI, Basel
Abstract: 
This paper investigates the role of fight night bonus awards on fighter behavior in the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and World Extreme Cage (WEC) fighting mixed martial arts (MMA) promotions. Behavior is analyzed using detailed fighter performance statistics, exploiting variation in bonus size across events and over time. Findings suggest that fighters are not meaningfully influenced by bonus levels within the range observed in the sample period and possible explanations are discussed. Fight night bonuses appear to serve as a lottery compensation mechanism to ex post reward performances consistent with an MMA promotion's desires rather than ex ante incentivize such performances. Findings have implications for strategic MMA promoter decisions and contribute more broadly to the personnel economics literature on incentives and compensation.
Subjects: 
bonuses
effort
fighter performance
mixed martial arts (MMA)
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)
World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC)
Zuffa LLC
JEL: 
J33
M52
Z22
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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