The ADCC, a crown jewel in the world of no-gi grappling, has seen a surge in popularity and scale over the last decade.
However, this growth hasn’t translated into increased prize money for the winners – a stark contrast to the purses in mixed martial arts (MMA).
In a recent interview with Morning Kombat, ADCC promoter and lead organizer Mo Jassim opened up about the stagnant state of the competition’s prize money:
Generally speaking, the prize money, it hasn’t changed since 1998 ever since the beginning.
It was very good back then. That is one thing.
Jassim also acknowledged the significant gap between ADCC’s payouts and those in MMA:
But in terms of the purse… In the grand scheme of things, I think it’s about $250,000 across the board.
So, you know, we’re very well behind MMA and stuff like that.
This sentiment echoes concerns raised earlier by Gordon Ryan:
My biggest thing to build ADCC is doing an amazing job, obviously.
But you have to increase the prize money, in my opinion.I think that you have to increase the prize money so drastically that it’s, like, by far the highest payment in grappling events, period.
Elevated payouts, Ryan believes, would make both competing and winning in the ADCC transformative for even the sport’s leading athletes.
