Claudia Gadelha, a former UFC competitor now working as an executive within the promotion’s BJJ division, recently detailed what UFC BJJ actually looks for in athletes, and how much top competitors are earning.

Gadelha said the division, still under two years old, went through an early recalibration.

Her original approach was simple – sign the best Jiu-Jitsu competitors in the world:

I’m going to get the world Jiu-Jitsu champions, the guys who compete in a gi or without a gi,
I’m going to bring them here and it’s going to be amazing.

That strategy didn’t produce the results she expected, though.

The issue, she explained, was that traditional competitive BJJ doesn’t translate well to a general audience:

In competitive Jiu-Jitsu, you sit there, put your butt on the ground, and just drag your butt along the ground…
And for us, it doesn’t work for you, nor for us, nor for Dana White, nor for anyone.

That led Gadelha to a broader reframing of the product itself, of UFC as an entertainment company.
With that framework, she outlined the two main qualities the division prioritizes when signing athletes.

The first is an aggressive, finish-oriented style – athletes who play for position or stall aren’t the fit UFC BJJ is looking for.
The second is marketing instinct, with Gadelha pointing to Conor McGregor and Ronda Rousey as examples of the kind of self-promotion the division values:

If you understand marketing, if you understand sales, how you work your social media, then it’s extremely important to be a good salesperson, perhaps even before being a good fighter.

On pay, Gadelha compared the division’s approach to how entertainment industries compensate performers:

We pay the athlete as if they were an actor, a singer, an actress, or an artist, because it’s a spectacle.

And in the end, she added that some athletes in the division are earning close to R$1 million per match – roughly $200,000 USD.

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