UFC 261 fighter salaries will not be disclosed due to “trade secret”

The salaries for the fighters competing on Saturday’s UFC 261 pay-per-view card in Jacksonville, Florida will not be revealed to the public.

Nolan King of MMAjunkie.com spoke to Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulations Patrick Fargason, who said that salaries will not be made available publicly.

Fighter salaries for #UFC261 will NOT be available as public records, Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation's Patrick Fargason tells me.

"The purse for that event has been deemed a trade secret by the promoter and therefore exempt from public record."

— Nolan King (@mma_kings) April 22, 2021

Fighter salaries for #UFC261 will NOT be available as public records, Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation’s Patrick Fargason tells me. “The purse for that event has been deemed a trade secret by the promoter and therefore exempt from public record.”

This is a change from 2020. Fighter salaries were available for #UFC249 and the two subsequent Jacksonville Fight Night events.

The statue cited is here, for those interested: https://t.co/bnwiY56aX6

— Nolan King (@mma_kings) April 22, 2021

This is a change from 2020. Fighter salaries were available for #UFC249 and the two subsequent Jacksonville Fight Night events. The statue cited is here, for those interested:

As King said, the salaries for UFC events in Florida have in the past been made available, including last year’s UFC 249 card that featured Justin Gaethje and Tony Ferguson in the main event, as well as the Fight Night cards that featured Alistair Overeem vs. Walt Harris and Anthony Smith vs. Glover Teixiera. For whatever reason, the UFC wants to see these salaries protected from being made available to the public now in the state of Florida.

The UFC has also been protected in the state of Nevada from publicly releasing the purses for the fighters, something which was common for years but is now a secret. UFC president Dana White has said in the past that he prefers that fans don’t know exactly what the fighters are making, and for the most part, we don’t know what many of them are making. It feels like in the past this information was more easily attainable than it is these days, where salaries from states such as Florida and Nevada are now hidden behind a wall.

What do you think about the UFC 261 salaries being deemed a “trade secret?”