MMA for absolutley free .... Am I crazy?

Question

So far I've let this team get away without paying me a single dime. How much should I be charging them per month according to your own

calculations? per month that is. As it stands right now all they pay for is their own licensing fees and travel expenses to these events.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYgpPVBYOfk <---they're winning, but I'm not seeing a dime .... should I become the greedy prick that Yahoo Answers idiots keep saying that I am?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70Jyta6pzTM <---Except for this stuff because Mike Reinzan was tired through a full three rounds in parts of this video which makes him look slow because he's tired. Usually Yahoo Answers arm chair coaches knock my boys for not having any striking, but they can bang with the best and you'll see a little of that in this video as well.

So any way how much should I be chagring them .... because it was me and only me that gave them the skills they have now. Should I be lining my pockets with their money? or should I just continue training them and making sure they stay safe in the cage and win and make sure they remain a "Brotherhood" so that one day they'll pass along what they've learned to someone else for free? just wondering becuase I keep hearing a lot of Yahoo Answers arm chair coaches telling me that I don't know what I'm doing ..... please be detailed in your answer ..... thanks.

Answer 1

Crazy? aren&#039;t all of us mma fighters crazy on some level. The majority of people can&#039;t stand getting hit lightly, so ya were some what crazy. But any ways we pay 35 a month and 70 when our new facility open. we are actually not paying the coach but he can not support us either. we are paying rent and utilities.  Your time, facilities and and knowledge are yours to put a price on. If you want to give it free for love of the sport and your mma family that is all up to you. Just don&#039;t let some one get ungrateful on you cause that would be  disrespect of another kind. Listen here though. There will always be keyboard warriors that know better than you and I about what we do(or so they think). Worrying about them is about as pointless as screen door on a battle submarine. When you waist your breath on them you are giving them just what they want, ATTENTION. on the flip side their is no shame in taking money for what you put in to them as long as you are not ripping them off. Remember you fighters are fighters though and would have gone some where else to get their skills if you had not been around.

Answer 2

depending what kind of facilities and your experience  i would say up to like 80 a month but since they are your friends and you are all cool i would expect to pay 50 a month and that&#039;s cheap the average mma gym is 100 + a month especially if your working their corners and all that mma skills are hard to get i don&#039;t think anyone would be upset by 50 a month  

Answer 3

There is no such thing as a free lunch.  In that, you have all the information you need.

Answer 4

Really? No money? I would think you would be with all these Novels our writing on Yahoo Answers lol. With all seriousness. No,your not crazy,they should pay. I pay 99 a Month for 3 days a week of Training.

Well,start charging about $99 a Month,or somthing like that.

Answer 5

Retro makes good points, especially from a liability standpoint, if one of these guys were to get seriously injured while training with you, and they had a parent/guardian/spouse, or just got annoyed you could end up dealing with serious financial problem. (hence insurance).

Honestly probably a good bit of guys out there essentially teach for free, even come out of their own pockets at times. Most of what people charge for is to pay the bills at their facilities (bigger facilities, bigger bills). While some guys manage do to pretty good, they have to acheive a pretty high level of success. (What you have is the equivalent of a few guys winning a tournament or two..not a high level of sucess). The guys who make money usually do it as a full time job, and also have really great business sense.

Keep in mind, I do agree there are some guys that are just teaching c**p and taking in as much money as possible, but I would say the majority of Martial Arts teachers and MMA guys aren&#039;t rolling in the dough and lining their pockets, most of them are trying to figure out how to pay their bills. At least that has been my experience having been involved in senior leadership on a few dojos.

Now when it comes to money:

1. FIrst and foremost what are you qualifications to teach? That would mean a lot as far as how much you should charge, or how much value you are worth. A guy winning at a local small show against not great fighters doesn&#039;t necessarily mean that he is winning through everything you taught, some guys have a natural talent. Now creating a stable of fighters who make it big time promotions and do well, also would Highly raise your value. That is what it all comes down to, your value as a coach depends on your credentials, and the success of your fighters. Obviously the better the success, the higher your value. The more you have on your resume, the more your time is worth, and also the more you can actually end up with facility/insurance/loan wise. If you go to open a business loan for a decent facility saying you are going to be teaching Martial Arts, they are going to want to know your resume for teaching (this helps determine your potential for drawing students, and being able to pay off said loan).

2. Secondly, are you setting them up with these fights? At the very least you should be getting a percentage of their purse for simply setting them up. You can coach for free, let them pay the fees, etc. but you should take a percentage of the purse regardless as their agent, if for anything as a means to help them get better gear. That is provided they are fighting pro, a lot of your guys aren&#039;t yet but probably will be thanks to your promotion of them, and work towards getting them fights. The bonus is the better you get at this, the more money you can demand for your fighters. Again, this money would be solely used to help them with better gear, seminars, travel expenses for the team.

3. What are you facilities? Again, this also means a lot. I am taking it you aren&#039;t running training out of a big time facility, otherwise you would be spending too much money out of pocket and working other jobs to get a chance to train you guys. Facilities equal money. Ultimately this is where most people get their approximation for how much to charge from.. they usually take what their operating expense is (electricity and rent) versus how many students they have, and divide it up, or shoot for a target. I have known many places that have continually dropped rates as they get more students.. or improved the facilities as more money came in. I don&#039;t see a lot of lining of pockets in Martial Arts and MMA, but I agree there are some out there that definately do.

I think teaching guys for free is a good thing, and I can understand your motivation. Keep in mind that teaching them for free might also be because you lack the justification to charge them.i.e. low credentials, no facilities, and their own gear. In that case you are doing it for a love of the sport, and that is very noble. Of course, I wouldn&#039;t go around calling myself &quot;MMAtopGuru&quot; or anything, but I certainly think teaching these guys for free is a good thing, especially as it buids and teaches you to be a better coach and Martial Artist. Everyone has to start somewhere.

Keep in mind aside from the big dojos, most guys are essentially teaching their guys for free, the fees they charge are to pay for facilities, training gear, and at times to get great instructors in for seminars. I have paid out of pocket to pay the light bills and rent for many a dojo/gym, most instructors have, even the big name guys at some point.

My Judo coaches who brought up two Olympians from our ranks, and several national champs never made a dime, and at times had to come out of pocket, all senior leadership at the dojo have had to when dues were low.

The MMA school I am involved with has the fighters pay 15% of their purses, but has a lot of pro fighters, and even with dues plus the 15%, the coaches and owner still have to come up with ways to pay the bills, or barely break even. Extra money they do get goes to new equipment, or services for the fighter and the team.

I think that most coaches/sensei&#039;s aren&#039;t out to make money and generally only collect dues to pay for the facilities. However if you have no facilities (aside from your home, etc.) then alleviates one need to collect money.

However taking some money from purses or such would at least help be able to afford newer or better training gear, and maybe put together some money to take them to some seminars to help them grow as fighters, or be able to pay travel expenses.

As far as the peanut gallery:

There is a lot of critique to be made from those videos in all honesty, but that is how people grow as fighters and coaches, and anyone in their first few fights are going to be full of mistakes, have some bad techniques and forms, that come into play the second they step into the cage, so it is not entirely fair to go over in detail all the things they are doing wrong, I have seen lots of guys who are good not look so good in their first few fights.

However when you make statements like you guys &quot;win MMA matches and laugh at their opponents&quot; or &quot;Win with perfect technique&quot; it will draw a bit more criticism. There were some huge flaws with your guys in those fights, I imagine the next week when you coached them you beat them into the ground about them. I noticed your guys end up on their backs a lot, some of it looks because they are fighting at weights that they are not cutting to.. (i.e. natural weight) and therefore are fighting bigger, stronger guys. But Michael Eaton&#039;s fight, I would chalk up to first fight jitters. I mean ducking his head in and charging was the main reason he got tossed like that. He was able to pull out a win, which is all that matters, but I am sure both he and you would have liked a more dominant win then spending most of the match and winning the fight from his back. There are going to be mistake in ANY fight. Any fighter can tell you after watching himself all the stuff he did wrong. So it is pretty d**n unfair of anyone to be overly critical of someone&#039;s fight if they have never stepped in the ring themselves.

I realize you are very passionate and such, and at times though you make pretty bold statements, using the work of your fighters as some sort of justification of your abilities or coaching abilities. As such, people are going to look at your fighters and make judgements. Personally I don&#039;t think that is fair to your guys, these guys are just starting to fight, even if you drilled them with perfect technique, a lot of that stuff flies out the window when adrenaline hits until they are actually comfortable.

Personally, I don&#039;t know you, I don&#039;t know what your credentials are, what rank in any of the core arts of MMA you have, what experience you have in MMA personally, or in any art other than you mentioned DVD series by guys, or saying you &quot;studied&quot; something. Personally, I don&#039;t care about any of that. I care more about your guys development as fighters for themselves then about your ego, or your teaching, etc.

I would openly and honestly tell you where I think your guys need to improve if you wanted outside advice, but you won&#039;t find me saying &quot;Your dude&#039;s technique sucks.blah.blah.blah.&quot; that kind of talk is garbage. But you never ask for critique of your fighters technique or fight, so most people won&#039;t give it. Unless of course you make a post like this and point to videos and talk about your guys amazing skill. You enthusiasm for them is effing awesome bro, it truly is. As a fighter having a guy as amped about his guys as your are is nothing short of amazing. However, there is a fine line between enthusiasm and delusion. There has to be some humility and so far the videos you have shown don&#039;t show me amazingly technically sound fighters, they look like what I would think I would see with any guy with a year or less training fighting in his first few MMA matches.

I do think sometimes you make pretty bold claims based on your passionate feelings for what you do, I can understand that. You have to realize that by doing that it will draw more intense scrutiny from some people, as posting anything on the internet will.  I just wouldn&#039;t take too much on the internet too personal, which it seems you do at times.

That is my detailed as possible answer.

Answer 6

Question 1.) Are you crazy?

If a persecution complex is crazy, then yes. Personally, I&#039;d say a bit intense, but not quite full blown padded room type crazy yet.

Question 2.) How much to charge?

However much you feel your time and knowledge is worth. Charging them isn&#039;t a bad thing -- if it&#039;s important to them, they&#039;ll find a way to pay for it, and it is an easy way of weeding out those who aren&#039;t serious about their training. If you feel that you can do that better by training them for free, do so. But either way, stop focusing on what others think of you or what you do. Do it because it&#039;s what you want to do. Be your own highest value.

h**l, that&#039;s why I answer your questions despite your remarks.

Answer 7

You&#039;re still crazy!

But, you need to figure out expenses.

Not one cent should come out of your pocket for anything.

At the moment, being that you&#039;re not charging them anything - it is your hard work as an instructor/coach/mentor that is giving them their success - You should get a cut.

I also don&#039;t charge for teaching. But I don&#039;t have the expenses. When I was charging for private lessons, I still didn&#039;t have much except for travel/wear &amp; tear.

At the moment, you can charge for the most minute services. When they start paying tuition, make sure you can pay yourself an amount that you would expect from a conventional job.

Answer 8

There are so many factors you need to think about if you want money to change hands. I suggest a full business plan. Evaluate your assets and expenses and determine what profit you wish to take. Remember:

    - GET INSURANCE

    - gear/equipment depreciates over time, budget for gear replacements

    - make sure your facility permits the business use you&#039;re planning on.

That said, I would say $75 would be average. Higher than that would be a premium.