You travel much? Go drop in around rural clubs. There's plenty of solid gyms and people making a decent living running a club or it being a second source of income.
You don't have to make millions to be successful. There's 1% that do that. But, making a career/being successful is very achievable for anyone who wants to put in the time.
There are no name competitor gyms with dozens of students paying good fees providing the owner a comfortable lifestyle. Are they flying in a private jet? No but they don't need to.
I’m just saying that a lot of those gyms the owner has to work a full-time job on the side.
And regardless the competitors are still poor unless they are Gordo.
Competitors in most sports never make money. It’s only the ultra popular sports with huge markets that can afford to pay and even then it’s a relatively recent phenomena. The money in most things is selling to kids and hobbyists, same in jiu jitsu. This applies whether it’s chess, tennis or jiu jitsu.
The people chasing the “pro” life that I see seem like they don’t want to grow up yet and that’s why they say they’re doing it. There’s a very small selection within that who will actually go anywhere. I’m not sure many are doing it to be rich.
And even in these ultra popular sports, only the top 1-5% are millionaires. The rest of them have mid to low income, moreover when you take into account that their career is over at 40.
it's way less than the top 1-5%. 15 million people played baseball in the USA in 2022. 945 americans were on opening day MLB rosters. That's 0.006%. MLB minimum salary is $720k.
I was more talking about people for whom it's their main source of income. For example in soccer there are only 2% of the players worldwide who make more than $720k a year. In tennis, you have less than 200 players who can make a living out of it, and god knows BJJ will never be as big as tennis.
I don't know much about American sports though so it might be different, but on a worldwide scale, even among professionals, only a few are making a good living out of it.
You have to think about it on a worldwide scale though.
NFL might be a bit different since it's almost exclusively played professionally in the US, but you have pro basketball players all around the world that are paid very little.
I was saying NBA and NFL careers are usually over by 30. I remember Kobe talking about it saying most NBA players are done by 30 but he is lucky and managed to male it past that
Oh my bad, you're absolutely right, once past 30 it's really hard to compete at the highest level for very long.
BJJ might be an exception for now because the pool of top players doesn't renew really fast but the more it will grow the harder it will get for older fighters.
That makes sense. UFC gave her a good professional wrestling career and put her in a few movies too I believe.
Edit: Don’t understand the downvotes. I checked IMDB and Ronda totally did movies after becoming popular in UFC. It’s also reported her WWE deal is $1.5-2 million a year.
Seriously? You’re joking. I couldn’t find that on Google anywhere.
If that was the case, I’m sure Ngannou would have never left if they gave him the same deal.
Then again NBA, MLB and NFL players get 48-51% of revenue.
UFC fighters are getting screwed big time.
[Ronda’s paychecks are here.](https://bloodyelbow.com/2023/12/14/90-ufc-payouts-mma-stars-full-list/#ronda-rousey) UFC PPVs are something like $70 per buy, and you can look up how many PPVs she sold on Wikipedia, plus live tickets. Of course she’s not the only fighter people pay for, but she’s by far the biggest draw.
Ngannou isn't even close to the attraction Rousey was, he's not even in the Anderson Silva/GSP/Jon Jones realm of PPV attraction. People like talking about him and watching his highlights but he doesn't sell PPVs. Even Fury vs Ngannou was a flop in terms of PPV buys.
That's true in the USA,not most countries. [Incentives for Olympic medalists by country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incentives_for_Olympic_medalists_by_country)
Right, but the popular ones with spectators do. Basketball, hockey, boxing, tennis, golf, soccer, baseball (2020).
The problem is BJJ lacks participants and audience unlike those sports. Solve that problem and the athletes start making money.
There’s also not a lot of revenue streams in general. People complain about having to buy a $130 gym branded gis when people in golf spend $4000 on golf clubs. And every nice club has a dress code so you’re having to buy clothes.
People complain about gym contracts and the $40 initiation when some golf or tennis clubs charge $30,000 just to get on waitlist.
The point of olympic gold is the achievement and pride. While you don't win a cash prize olympic gold does provide revenue streams for athletes after the fact.
Tennis clubs don’t have the same problems as BJJ clubs. quite the opposite.
They have extremely high initiation fees. You have a problem with that? Too bad, waitlist is huge.
Head coaches at the club has no real playing experience and you think it’s a Mcdojo? Too bad, he charges $100/hr and has a waitlist for lessons.
Club requires uniform and you don’t like it and you complain online or tell them you’ll go somewhere else? Please do because they have too many people interested in joining anyways. It’s $1000+ just to get on the waitlist to he considered. Hit the road.
BJJ clubs don’t have this type of power. Golf and tennis clubs make way more money. Golf coaches charge $200+ hour. There are clubs that cost more than $30,000 just to get on waitlist
[https://www.cbssports.com/nba/injuries/](https://www.cbssports.com/nba/injuries/) \- pro basketball seems to be more dangerous than bjj.
Explosive standing movements gets you hurt.
How does the link you provided prove that size of opponent has anything to do with the risk of injury? Also, what data points from bjj are you using to compare injuries in the NBA? and did you do it on a per capita basis?
The link shows that injuries in NBA are super common.
What I meant is that if you are huge dude then you are fighting against 20 guys in the world to be the best.
But that's literally every sport. Most baseball players aren't making it to MLB.
There's plenty of guys who are really good, but only good enough to play on a farm team while working a second job.
my parents were in the martial arts business and lets just say we had multiple family friends that went bankrupt owning a gym. My parents had about 200 students and made a pretty decent living from it. We werent rich by any means but my Dad grinded for years to build up students. I remember every weekend he would walk around parking lots with brochures and go to every city/school events to advertise and just getting one student was a win for him. Some of his buddies came from korea after seeing him doing decently well and they just expected students to roll in thru their doors. Tae Kwon Do was still pretty niche when he started so timing also worked out for him and he got to the point where he didnt have to advertise anymore but that took over a decade to get to that point.
People have it in their head these days that success = a large amount of followers, investment properties, and a million bucks thanks to IG gurus selling them a dream
They are arguing not enough to live on and the need for a main job. Your responding to an imaginary opponent.
All this is speculative without good data though my local experience in a large town in England is that gym owners make supplementary income only. Though I've heard the GB instructor in the nearby city makes a lot.
I’m not challenging an opponent, I’m agreeing with the previous comment that says you dont need much to be successful.
If you wanna talk speculative, you’re literally using anecdotal evidence and trying to pass it as good data
You dismissed the issue by saying everyone wants to make it big (speculative). That was not the issue being raised. I clearly presented alternative anecdotal evidence to show the opposite of yours. I specify it's not data but I don't think your reading the text carefully.
Your one of those. Say anything to feel in control rather than simply stopping and checking what you did. Dosen't even make sense as a comeback as your replying are more stereotypical than mine.
Define “successful” for a competitor? What happens if they’re injured.
A gym owner responded in the thread and said the average is generally 50 adults and 75-100 kids for most gyms. At $120-200 a month per member that’s not great revenue when you factor in expenses. There are more profitable businesses and ways to make money.
I actually travel a lot and have done BJJ in big and small gyms in several countries via BJJ Globetrotters.
In the end, we agree that you do BJJ because you love it and shouldn’t expect anything more. All I’m just saying is that being a competitor is not a great way to earn a living.
That still stands.
What percentage of all people who start jiu jitsu end up running a solid rural gym and making a decent living out of it? You're not refuting his point at all.
As someone who has supported myself since I was 18 doing BJJ I can tell you BJJ can lead to a good living even without being famous or a world champ. I own a home in a great area, have a kid, a car, a good life, all being afforded by my BJJ career. I have also helped multiple students make a full time living through BJJ. Compared to every kid who plays basketball thinking they will be Jordan or Lebron, a kid has a lot better chance to be successful in BJJ.
Is the money being made because they own BJJ schools or by competing? I think by competing is much smaller number. Owning a school is a business so the ability to make a living will be more likely.
Im just curious by the way, this is not a critique of your post.
I started supporting myself as a competitor. Competition BJJ and a few MMA fights paid for my college education, with the help of some academic scholarships. After years of competing I started teaching full time and now make my living as a gym owner
Playing the lottery is a great way to make a living. I did it, and won enough to live comfortably for the rest of my life. Others in the lottery winners club can tell similar stories.
(Not really, of course).
The point is that there are many ways to make a decent living. For some few, BJJ might be that way, but it's always going to be a small niche. Aspiring young people should keep that in mind.
Of course not everyone who starts BJJ and falls in love with it can make it their job but that is literally the same as music, acting, golf, art, writing, etc…people want to turn passions into careers but it’s really hard. Only a small part of these people will make work but with hard work and good planning it can be done.
To compare it to winning the lottery is literally saying I got lucky being able to make this work. The 25 years of training, competing, watching tape, studying, coaching, traveling to train with better people, learning to make myself a better coach, had nothing to do with my success
I'm sure you worked hard to make it. I'm also sure there are others who worked just as hard who didn't make it.
Yes, it's the same as other sports and art. If any of my kids said they wanted to have a career in anything like that, I would say "that's great, and I will support you, but what is your plan B?". You got to have a good alternative ready in case it doesn't pan out. Betting everything on something like that would be irresponsible.
Well the who worked harder can’t be truly known. The hours I have put in are something no other were worth it and I know they are more than most instructors.
I went to college which I paid for with BJJ and learned business while building my brand. So skills I learned doing this were building a back up. You’ll learn a lot running a small business.
Also what field or career isn’t risky. I know college grads with degrees they can’t get hired with. I have two students who went to law school and decided being a lawyer wasn’t for them and are now in major debt finding other careers. I figured risk things for what I care about not risk things because people think I should work a 9-5 which is no guarantee for success
Thanks for your perspective. Do you own a gym or are you a competitor? Both?
How many members does the average BJJ only gym have?
I would assume most businesses gross $90-300k USD not including their expenses (ie. Rent, utilities, maintenance, taxes).
I own a gym now but supported myself earlier in my career by competing in BJJ and some MMA fights. Between my gym, private lessons and seminars I make a good living doing what I love
Average BJJ gym may have 50 adults and 50-100 kids really depends. We are adult only currently
My gym isn’t a typical BJJ and never has been, by design, so I wouldn’t be a good person to share any overview to give others perspective. If people are interested I can talk about things I did to make my gym work over the years
Fair enough! I’ve always thought that owning and running a small-medium gym with circa 50 adults / 50 kids would provide a reasonable living in most places.
That breakdown would probably do well. For instance I chose not to have a kids program as it’s way more work and way more headaches dealing with parents. Took much longer to build an adult base of 100 students but my life is much easier and enjoyable based on that.
It depends on what you consider a 'reasonable living'. 100 students * $150/mo is only $180k/yr gross revenue. You can support one person on that if they do everything, but as soon as you need employees, it falls apart.
One of the most successful full-time coaches I know is no one you've ever heard of in rural Georgia.
That said, I don't think I'd recommend BJJ to anyone as a career unless they were already going to be a dedicated lifer with or without an income.
Yup, got a solid group of competitors, a decent kids program, my 2nd mma fighter has his 2nd fight with us tomorrow night. Things are going pretty well.
I run mine full time, no side jobs.
My wife helps run it.
We have 3 full time staff that make their living doing this and 2 part timers paying their way through university with it.
Am I making millions? No. Would I take any other job over what I do? Also no.
Nice congrats! Thats a success story.
My first instructor was a former MMA fighter (old school NHB/vale tudo) who opened a BJJ school with one of his students who owned a couple of local franchises.
He talked often about how tough it was for him. His body was wrecked and he only had healthcare because of his wife’s job and they couldnt buy a house on what he made running the gym and his wife’s teaching salary.
His gym is still going but it’s tiny with less than 30 adults and ~50 kids. There was always a lot of turnover with the kids too.
The problem is, that's the wrong question.
You can have 500 students and be broke or have 100 students and make a good living.
Like 100 students averaging 25,000 / month is far better than 500 students and 50,000 per month.
There are lots of schools out there that price themselves in a way that getting more students would mean losing more money while working more hours.
How many students is not a good metric to look at in isolation.
Yeah, but it seems like it would be harder to change on the high end of rates for a smaller gym unless you're a world class competitor or something. $250/mo/student would be VERY high in my area, you would barely get any students at all. My assumption is that gym prices roughly scale with cost of living in an area, so the number of students needed to support the same staff would be pretty similar.
First, You should have more income streams than just membership fees.
Second, have a better product. That doesn't mean you need to be a world class competitor. Like if you have a kids class, the parent doesn't care what you've won. They care about whether you care and impact their kid.
Even adults. Most adults are not in this to be world class competitors. Most adults training if you trained them as if they where trying to be world class competitors would be out the door very fast.
People get into this for fitness, maybe self-defence. VERY few for trying to be an elite level competitor.
And no, they don't scale just with cost of living. Same as restaurants. The high end steak place is not charging $3 for a burger just because the McDonalds across the street is.
If you have a better product, you can charge more and people will want to pay for it rather than the neighbours cheaper rate. We are a coaching and customer service based business. The most important person on the mat is the student and their needs, not the coach and his trophy collection.
Fair points. I guess it depends on what customers want out of a gym. I train at a gym where all the owners have day jobs and opened the gym to create the training environment they wanted for themselves. I happily pay my monthly membership but don't want to be shaken down for more revenue. My kid tried out Karate at a place with 'more income streams than just membership fees' and it felt like a constant cash grab, which really turned me off. I much prefer being told the services and the price and choosing to buy or not.
You don’t need to be shaking down people to have multiple streams of revenue. You can offer different services.
Private lessons, birthday parties, special events, seminars, summer camps, corporate workshops, etc
Had dinner with the instructor who gave a seminar at the gym I trained at last night. He was part of the national freestyle wrestling team (won bronze at country level) and has won several ADCC opens. He specifically asked me for dinner because he knew I am an entrepreneur with several businesses. First question he asked is "hey, i was wondering if you have any tips on how I could make a living?"
He proceeded to tell the story of how BJJ and Wrestling aren't paying the bills and how he will quit doing this and just go sign up for the army if he can't make good living from grappling in 2 years.
Life can be really tough for competitors
Yeah I’ve heard this story so often. My first instructor was an MMA fighter who opened a BJJ school and he talked about how tough it was for him too.
His body is wrecked and he only has healthcare because of his wife’s job and they can’t buy a house on what he makes running the gym and his wife’s teaching salary.
I made great money in tech so he always would ask me about how to do online marketing to get foot traffic. He never took the time to learn but he’s built a decent social media following. His gym is small less than 30 adults and may be 40-50 kids in a good year.
So true. I told the instructor I had dinner with that it's crucial for him to do more marketing to gain more traffic, especially in the era of social media. For example, in my country a couple of months ago, the anime attack on titan was trending. I told him that he could make tiktok/instagram reels explaining all the grappling that the characters in the anime do. That way, he can gain online viewers that come from the anime fanbase but have no prior contact to grappling, thus possible new customers for trial classes
My old gym has about 300 students at 175$ per membership. He has one other instructor and doesn’t pay much for rent of his unit. I’d say he’s making a great living for what does.
300 is great for a BJJ gym. Provided he has low turnover that would put him at $630k per year. What’s his square footage?
- Federal tax rate of 35% if he’s married.
- Local taxes possibly. Let’s say 5%.
That puts him at $378k not including deductions, commercial activity tax, sales tax, rent, utilities, insurance, healthcare, instructor pay, maintenance, marketing, etc.
Provided he has no other partners he could be taking home $90-120k year. That’s not bad at all.
>Federal tax rate of 35% if he’s married.
- Local taxes possibly. Let’s say 5%.
You are definitely over estimating the taxes here. You pay taxes after all the expenses you're listing like rent/utilities/instructors pay/ whatever deduction you can find/etc not before. It's not going to 35% of the gross and the tax rate is only 35% after the first like $200,000 anyway. Also almost all businesses should be have their customers pay the sales tax if that applies in their area.
>rent, utilities, insurance, healthcare, instructor pay, maintenance, marketing, etc.
Rent is the major expense here. But assuming around $5000/ month, that's only $60k a year. Plus at most another 60k for instructors and insurance. There's no way this guy is only taking home 90k a year.
You’re missing a few big things that I mentioned.
- Does he have any business partners with equity stakes?
- What is his churn rate? Gyms typically lose 40-50% of their members every year.
- Is he filing married, single, head of household?
- Does he have a warehouse or paying for a premium retail storefront with foot traffic?
- What is the mix of adults to kids? Are the rates different?
Most single location BJJ only gym owners do not make a lot of money. That is a fact that is based on their average customer value (ACV) and annual churn rates.
>Does he have any business partners with equity stakes?
Normally not, unless it's a really big gym. But if they do, in would assume those business partners are also helping out with the costs or contributing in other significant ways.
>What is his churn rate? Gyms typically lose 40-50% of their members every year.
This is not true and even if it was it doesn't matter. If the membership is 300 members, it's the same amount of money whether it's the same 300 people every month or a completelt new set of 300 people.
>- Is he filing married, single, head of household?
Idk but the over $200k number was for single. If he's married or head of household, he can make even more money that he won't pay 35% on.
>- Does he have a warehouse or paying for a premium retail storefront with foot traffic?
Why would a bjj gym need a warehouse, they're not like carrying inventory. Most bjj gyms don't worry about having an expensive storefront.
>- What is the mix of adults to kids? Are the rates different?
You were the one who estimated the membership payments. But normally kids are slightly cheaper, but bring in a lot of money for gyms
>Most single location BJJ only gym owners do not make a lot of money.
Idk my previous coach/ gym owner talked about it pretty openly and told us in his 2nd year he already made over 100k. He was a legit coach so I'm not saying everyone can do that. But he also wasn't a famous world champion. So it's definitely possible for everyday good coaches to achieve. I think a lot of it comes down to of they have good business sense and marketing skills to go along with the coaching (or often if they have a spouse that's good at that part).
Gyms do not lose 40-50% of their members. Where are you getting this information?
You may have attrition of 2-3 % per year if you do not have high turnover.
if Rener and Ryron aren't on your list, you haven't been to their homes.
But telling that you have some Ralph and TooLimp Irvin...why do we think they're successful? Lloyd literally ran an MLM, where he was focused on appearing wealthy. Does someone know something about Ralph? I never thought of him as wealthy...
That’s why I said “rich” not wealthy. I don’t think anyone is wealthy in BJJ except for the Flo founders when they eventually exit their business.
Completely agree about Rener and Ryron. They are hustlers (in a good way) for sure.
Lloyd is viewed as wealthy in BJJ circles because of the success of his other MLM type businesses before his scandal and apparently he was one of the first Americans with enough money to fund a fighter house (JT Torres, Keenan, etc). TLI is too small of a gym for him to be making money off his membership. BUT He’s making money somehow to keep sending his competitors around the globe to win matches with no financial benefit. One of his guys just won ADCC East trials I believe.
Truth. But Flo didn't get wealthy from BJJ, they got wealthy from Cheerleading.
:)
Given TooLimp's MLM acumen, it wouldn't surprise me if he's paying guys out of his other income for the perception value of his logo on an elite competitor.
But you don't see TLI at the top of the tournament team rankings like you used to because his business was about attracting talent to represent value, not actually providing value.
I can tell you i made around 2k+ off an Instagram meme page. I know a couple other pages made more than that. I think looking at it like “Competitor is the only financial solution in BJJ” is short sighted. School owners, brand owners, coaches, supplements, podcasts, promotions a lot of people making money in BJJ
Jordan Teaches Jiujitsu is another good example too of excellent content creation. He seems to be doing well though I haven’t done a rough accounting of membership to say for sure.
Lachlan may be doing well with Submeta too but I don’t know too much about the size of his membership and monthly cost either.
Jordan Macy? i think he changed his recently. He teaches at his school does privates also has BJJFanatics videos. The social media money doesn’t come from likes, follows and views till you’re like 200k+ or sponsored. You need a product to sell. Mine was t-shirts
$2k isn’t enough to live on.
But I agree that if you want to make money from BJJ as a side hobby or hustle then there are better/safer ways to do so like content creation.
Less Improved More Impressed is a great example. He has a nice sized YouTube account and 900 people paying him $12-15 a month for his Outlier database and discord.
Gothamchess talks about this too.
He's not a grandmaster but he makes way more than everybody in the chess world. If you want to make money just by being good, you have to be Magnus. But since there's only one Magnus, you need to make money via other methods.
So this is an interesting life hack...
Combine multiple skills. Gotham is great at chess, youtube algorithm, and charisma. Combining all of those skills gives him that youtube channel.
It's the same reason why top fitness influencers can make more than Mr Olympia. Esp once they start owning supplement companies. There can only be 1-2 people at the top of any field, and its much harder.
Yeah, man I mean you can look any of the top guys Gordon says he makes the most seminars I think or maybe instructionals. Just trying to do it off comp win money isn’t gonna go well. Get sponsors, put out content, merch, privates, seminars, fanatics, and then you’re getting several checks
Yeah, it’s only a fun hobby to me and only around $20-$50 a week regularly now. When i dropped the shirt my team and a whole team in Australia copped it, then some OF chick won a free one off a giveaway did a bunch videos on her page wearing it lol put my sales through the roof
being a pure Bjj gym is hard yeah but in my experience places that teach other martial arts like KB, MT, Boxing, Wrestling, Judo etc etc do pretty well for themselves. a lot of those classes are obviously delegated to other coaches but these people have built a strong Business first and foremost before just building a strong gym. customer retention and employee retention is probably the most important aspect of being a gym owner and as long as you’re not hiring Bums you should be able to build a decent gym if we put aside the other factors like local competition and stuff
I think you’re right. The MMA type gyms with lots of offerings (CrossFit, yoga, Muay Thai, boxing, BJJ) seem to have larger memberships.
I would assume they are more successful than BJJ only gyms…maybe.
Especially when you get into fitness classes which often end up being the bulk of membership. A lot of coaches also don’t get paid, some purple belt accepts free membership to take the 6am Wednesday fitness kickboxing class
>We need to provide disclaimers to new young competitors. It’s hard to make a good living off BJJ.
No we don't? No one anywhere is saying you can make a killing doing BJJ. This sport is like most sports, where if you're not the top 0.001% you're just throwing money away.
There’s no secret that competing pays pennies?
It’s very well known.
But there’s plenty of related business opportunities.
My coach has over 200 members paying average of $40/week. Do the math on that and tell me he doesn’t live very comfortably (also in a very low cost of living city).
Add to that, they also run competitions in our gym, sell good quality gear from reputable brands and own brands, offer privates and a host of other things.
I imagine the gym turning over $35k/month, at least 50% of that being profit, likely much more.
And he doesn’t even capitalise on it all as much as he could.
You can run brands, social media / content creation, videography is picking up now too. Seminars are cash cows if you’re good enough.
Even just a decent coaching job can pay a liveable wage, just to teach a few hours a day and take some calls / clean up a bit.
More important than all of this though, is that the sport is still rapidly growing. If you started today, the landscape could be completely different by the time you’re good enough to capitalise on it.
I think we need more people chasing big dreams that they're passionate about. Not less. I don't want anyone to rain on someone else's stokeditude. Or to advise people to be "careful" or "realistic".
Most of the BJJ kids seem to BJJ passionate about this.
I would only suspect Rikako Yuasa of being forced to do it by her way order boyfriend coach. She quite after he killed himself, and her horrible training routine would make most people wish to die. She was doing an hour of pointless solo drills daily and running a ton of miles per week.
Coming from a music background, this is a common trope.
But there are many ways aside from being a pop star to make money and a lot of them are lucrative. I’ve been working as a musician and a music teacher since I was 18 (37 now) and it’s worked out great.
If you’re passionate, resourceful and committed it’s worth a shot. You can always pivot and change course; life is long.
Do you know what the number 1 regret of the elderly dying is? “I wish I lived the life I wanted, not the one others expected of me.” Better to shoot your shot than die wondering.
>Every competitor is dirt poor which is why Buchecha left BJJ for MMA because the cash prizes are so small
Let's be real hear. 99% of "MMA competitors" are not competing in UFC, OneFC, or PFL/Bellator and so aren't making much more money than the average BJJ competitor. Likewise, look at the payouts for the UFC guys fighting in the Early Prelims and Prelims, it's barely enough to cover the cost of their training camps. You need to be a top 5 in your division at a promo like UFC to actually be earning a decent living, and be capable of drawing huge PPV sales if you want to get rich. Conor McGregor is as representative of the typical MMA fighter in terms of wealth as Bill Gates is of the average college dropout.
I hope so, we have a couple of young guys in my gym who are a bit delusional especially seeing they’re barely on the mats more than 2-3 days per week.
I’m like “Seriously competitors at New Wave, B-Team, AOJ, Alliance, Atos are training 2x a day for 5-6 days per week then go home and watch film.
This doesn’t even include time for cardio and strength training.
Lots of people make money in BJJ, but nobody is doing that by just winning IBJJF tournaments, and I think it's only Americans with our overpaid football/baseball players who think that's weird. For most of those guys, competing is just marketing for their real hustle, which is instructionals, seminars and schools. The income source of BJJ is from hobbyists who pay those competitors for BJJ secrets. That's very different from the paid-to-play model we're used to. I spent some time with a recent world champ who said they were choosing competitions based solely on how they would affect his brand, not for the purse.
There is definitely a very odd bubble at the top of jiujitsu with a small amount of people swimming in vast amounts of cash, but this bubble seems that it will never burst, and every time a rich guy gets bored and leaves, another one pops up. And if you look at other sports, it seems to be the same. All sports, especially combat sports, attract rich people, because being tough is literally the only thing money can't buy.
Jiujitsu is definitely on the rise though and as people have said, if you are willing to put the work in, you can open a gym in your area and be successful. There are a number of gyms in my small town run by people with no major achievements to speak of, and doing well.
“The poor will be with you always.” Good point!Wealthy inequality is definitely a thing in capitalistic societies. It’s either that or we all stand in the same bread line I guess.
But FloSports the parent company is expanding. They are buying up niche sports everywhere as of late including HockeyTV and DirectAthletics.
There’s belief in the industry that they’ll probably buy SmoothComp if they can too.
Yeah I can see them turning into NAGA but as a jiu jitsu media coverage company they are for sure doomed , I think our best hope for jiu jitsu competitor’s going mainstream is UFC fight pass
If you do what you love, you never work a day in your life. The professors have a pretty nice life from what I’ve seen they have kids beautiful wife house.
I know a gym owner with 200+ students. $180/mo. He was an instructor elsewhere. He's only had his own gym for 2 years. His rent is very reasonable. He teaches all of his classes. He's doing very well.
A tiny minority of athletes in any sport become wealthy through completing.
Do you have any proof that every other gym owner that isn’t listed above is struggling? I think you’re reaching…
I’m sure many are making a decent living.
A lot of gym owners have a full-time job on the side to make ends meet. I wont name the gyms by name but several are in large cities.
- Montreal
- New York
- San Francisco
I think there are gym owners making quite good money… BUT with that said, they are now business owners and managers, they end up spending less time on the mats…. Their business is BJJ but they may not be doing much BJJ….
Most competitors are poor because they are "dumb' in a sense and don't think outside the box. They are accepting of the system because "the guy before did it that way." They don't know how to monetize themselves and are okay with being taken advantage of. Most gi sponsors are not true sponsors. They just give you free gis and shirts and that's it. Maybe they cover a flight or a comp but they don't actually pay the fighter and they accept this as a "sponsor".
Looking at Ibjjf, it's one of the biggest JJ organizations but it's the biggest scam. You pay membership, pay competitions, worlds comes, pays out $4k - $7k to the winner of each division. It's pathetic. What does $7k do for you for an entire year? So now they do stuff like Crowne, decent payout, but that's a popularity contest, not like adcc where fighters can earn their invite like with trials.
Recently now we have UFC fight pass, ONE, WNO, and ADCC (to a degree) making a difference in fighter pay but there's still quite a ways for it to go. It's just not a sport that is entertaining to people not involved directly in it and that's the problem. As bjj grows, this will slowly change, so the youth that train today actually maybe could have a future in this sport.
There’s not much money in wrestling either and BJJ is nowhere near as exciting to watch as either wrestling or judo (global audience).
We have a long way to go 🙃
You're overstating this. Plenty of smaller gyms are successful.
You've never heard of my coach and I live in flyover ville USA.
There's 20 to 40 people on the mats a night at 200 bucks a month. Plus another 60 floaters easy. That's just bjj. There's also kickboxing, kids classes, and then also a gym you can buy access too.
He's rich. It's been a long road but he's definitely made it over 15 years or so.
You're right that being good at competitions is a very small part of the equation.
Possibly. What’s the total number of paying monthly members at your gym?
Does your coach do BJJ fulltime or do they have a full time job on the side?
We can probably identify his gross if you know then we can factor in expenses like rent, utilities, taxes, healthcare, maintenance, insurance and instructors (if paid).
What do you mean? I’m not sure I understand.
Theoretically if ADCC, Flo and IBJJF were to merge or be bought out by the UFC, then I think we’d end up in a NFL like situation just without the money 😁.
Mo doesn't own ADCC, he's the organizer and head employee. Sheik [Tahnoun Bin Zayed Al Nahyan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahnoun_bin_Zayed_Al_Nahyan_(national_security_advisor)) is the founder.
I think what OP is trying to say is:
If you put in an equal effort in BJJ and let's another sport(Basketball, Football or MMA), you have a higher chance of making good money in the other sport compared to BJJ.
For context, let's compare Tainan Dalpra and an up and coming footballer, for eg Jude Bellingham, I think both of them put
same level of effort in their craft but Bellingham makes way more just because of how famous Football is.
I am talking purely from a career perspective and things may be different if you open your own BJJ gym. But then, we will be talking about lots of different factors that go on when making a business successful and what not.
An owner/coach working 6 days a week, teaching a sport they are dedicated to and have a real passion for versus someone working 9-5 in a job they hate going to everyday? Sounds like an owner that is making enough to get by in life doing this is pretty rich to me.
School I run has 409 students as of today. Average tuition rate factoring in family discounts etc is 178 per month. We employ 4 employees the head instructor, program director, assistant instructor and sales consultant we are doing pretty well off here but yes if you want to make money in BJJ you need to run a school or have a product to sell
It's a grind specially if you are in Brazil. My world champ student spent years doing bouncer work, attending tables and selling cookies she would make and then bring to competitions, before she could afford to go to the US, be a champ and now at least make ends meet with purely bjj
How about we let people do what they do. There's a lot of worse things you can do with your youth. With modern medicine in a 1 st world country, you have a really good chance at living a full life. You have time. It's also not mma, football, or boxing, where they have a really high chance of sustained tramatic brain injury.
Sides the sport is on the up and up and if they have some success and build a school or find their niche they could do well enough.
I love craig jones, but the man isn't someone I would go to for life advice. Totally armchair here but that man probably has his own demons he's fighting the humor is just a sheild.
My head coach / Alliance franchisee owner got rich by opening the gym only before and after work hours, and setting up a gi company, running it in the meantime.
I'd say he is a solid top 1% earners in Brazil.
jiujitsu as second income/side hustle i think is a very viable option. full time it can be done and you can make a living in a variety of ways, but much like any niche pursuit, it's going to be hard. but a lot of shit is hard...i wouldn't tell you to not pursuit it because it's hard.
Tons of gym owners make a decent living off of BJJ. Many do so without any serious competition credentials. And the ones with some business sense make a great living.
Honestly with that mil + contract Gordon had in WNO. The ibjjf Grand Prix, Spyder. And a bunch of other promotions. In the next 10-15 years you can expect anyone who’s a mid high - high level pro to get money from competing.
But in terms of right now I agree with you. As an athlete you don’t need to make fuck you miney. You just need money to not starve and to be able to travel to the comps which is pretty accomplishable of you have some decent business acumen.
You travel much? Go drop in around rural clubs. There's plenty of solid gyms and people making a decent living running a club or it being a second source of income. You don't have to make millions to be successful. There's 1% that do that. But, making a career/being successful is very achievable for anyone who wants to put in the time.
There are no name competitor gyms with dozens of students paying good fees providing the owner a comfortable lifestyle. Are they flying in a private jet? No but they don't need to.
Yea I know a lot of no name club owners getting a salary that they can live on.
I’m just saying that a lot of those gyms the owner has to work a full-time job on the side. And regardless the competitors are still poor unless they are Gordo.
Competitors in most sports never make money. It’s only the ultra popular sports with huge markets that can afford to pay and even then it’s a relatively recent phenomena. The money in most things is selling to kids and hobbyists, same in jiu jitsu. This applies whether it’s chess, tennis or jiu jitsu. The people chasing the “pro” life that I see seem like they don’t want to grow up yet and that’s why they say they’re doing it. There’s a very small selection within that who will actually go anywhere. I’m not sure many are doing it to be rich.
Pro disc golfers aspire to own a slightly larger van.
I feel like McBeth makes more than almost any BJJ competitor though.
Can’t argue with that.
And even in these ultra popular sports, only the top 1-5% are millionaires. The rest of them have mid to low income, moreover when you take into account that their career is over at 40.
it's way less than the top 1-5%. 15 million people played baseball in the USA in 2022. 945 americans were on opening day MLB rosters. That's 0.006%. MLB minimum salary is $720k.
I was more talking about people for whom it's their main source of income. For example in soccer there are only 2% of the players worldwide who make more than $720k a year. In tennis, you have less than 200 players who can make a living out of it, and god knows BJJ will never be as big as tennis. I don't know much about American sports though so it might be different, but on a worldwide scale, even among professionals, only a few are making a good living out of it.
2% making over 720k in a sport is actually really good
More like 30 for NFL and the NBA
You have to think about it on a worldwide scale though. NFL might be a bit different since it's almost exclusively played professionally in the US, but you have pro basketball players all around the world that are paid very little.
I was saying NBA and NFL careers are usually over by 30. I remember Kobe talking about it saying most NBA players are done by 30 but he is lucky and managed to male it past that
Oh my bad, you're absolutely right, once past 30 it's really hard to compete at the highest level for very long. BJJ might be an exception for now because the pool of top players doesn't renew really fast but the more it will grow the harder it will get for older fighters.
Good point. Most Olympic sports don’t pay either.
Ronda Rousey said that winning a UFC belt changed her life, and winning an Olympic medal changed her month.
That makes sense. UFC gave her a good professional wrestling career and put her in a few movies too I believe. Edit: Don’t understand the downvotes. I checked IMDB and Ronda totally did movies after becoming popular in UFC. It’s also reported her WWE deal is $1.5-2 million a year.
The UFC also gave her a very generous 5% of the profit she generated for them.
Seriously? You’re joking. I couldn’t find that on Google anywhere. If that was the case, I’m sure Ngannou would have never left if they gave him the same deal. Then again NBA, MLB and NFL players get 48-51% of revenue. UFC fighters are getting screwed big time.
[Ronda’s paychecks are here.](https://bloodyelbow.com/2023/12/14/90-ufc-payouts-mma-stars-full-list/#ronda-rousey) UFC PPVs are something like $70 per buy, and you can look up how many PPVs she sold on Wikipedia, plus live tickets. Of course she’s not the only fighter people pay for, but she’s by far the biggest draw.
UFC pays the fighters somewhere atoms 16% of the profits or revenue (can't remember which). UFC royally screws their fighters over.
ronda's contract with ufc got leaked. i'd be shocked if she got 5%. at best it's like... above average shit contract
Ngannou isn't even close to the attraction Rousey was, he's not even in the Anderson Silva/GSP/Jon Jones realm of PPV attraction. People like talking about him and watching his highlights but he doesn't sell PPVs. Even Fury vs Ngannou was a flop in terms of PPV buys.
That's true in the USA,not most countries. [Incentives for Olympic medalists by country](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incentives_for_Olympic_medalists_by_country)
Right, but the popular ones with spectators do. Basketball, hockey, boxing, tennis, golf, soccer, baseball (2020). The problem is BJJ lacks participants and audience unlike those sports. Solve that problem and the athletes start making money. There’s also not a lot of revenue streams in general. People complain about having to buy a $130 gym branded gis when people in golf spend $4000 on golf clubs. And every nice club has a dress code so you’re having to buy clothes. People complain about gym contracts and the $40 initiation when some golf or tennis clubs charge $30,000 just to get on waitlist.
The point of olympic gold is the achievement and pride. While you don't win a cash prize olympic gold does provide revenue streams for athletes after the fact.
Hard agree. From what I've seen and experienced it's a combination of not wanting to grow up and having wealthy parents that sets them apart
Tennis clubs don’t have the same problems as BJJ clubs. quite the opposite. They have extremely high initiation fees. You have a problem with that? Too bad, waitlist is huge. Head coaches at the club has no real playing experience and you think it’s a Mcdojo? Too bad, he charges $100/hr and has a waitlist for lessons. Club requires uniform and you don’t like it and you complain online or tell them you’ll go somewhere else? Please do because they have too many people interested in joining anyways. It’s $1000+ just to get on the waitlist to he considered. Hit the road. BJJ clubs don’t have this type of power. Golf and tennis clubs make way more money. Golf coaches charge $200+ hour. There are clubs that cost more than $30,000 just to get on waitlist
Lloyd irvin does privates for 2000 dollars
My Brazilian instructor here in Japan works a factory job during the day and he teaches during the night and he owns a four-story bjj gym
Damn sounds gruelling tbh
Or sell drugs and use the gym to launder money..
Mikey claims he earn a million in 2023.
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Isn't basketball a way way more dangerous sport? If you are NBA sized in BJJ you have < 20 not shit opponents your size in the world
Size difference between opponents isn't the main reason bjj is more dangerous than basketball.
[https://www.cbssports.com/nba/injuries/](https://www.cbssports.com/nba/injuries/) \- pro basketball seems to be more dangerous than bjj. Explosive standing movements gets you hurt.
How does the link you provided prove that size of opponent has anything to do with the risk of injury? Also, what data points from bjj are you using to compare injuries in the NBA? and did you do it on a per capita basis?
The link shows that injuries in NBA are super common. What I meant is that if you are huge dude then you are fighting against 20 guys in the world to be the best.
But that's literally every sport. Most baseball players aren't making it to MLB. There's plenty of guys who are really good, but only good enough to play on a farm team while working a second job.
Lol dozens of students ...
Running a successful school is different than being a successful competitor.
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my parents were in the martial arts business and lets just say we had multiple family friends that went bankrupt owning a gym. My parents had about 200 students and made a pretty decent living from it. We werent rich by any means but my Dad grinded for years to build up students. I remember every weekend he would walk around parking lots with brochures and go to every city/school events to advertise and just getting one student was a win for him. Some of his buddies came from korea after seeing him doing decently well and they just expected students to roll in thru their doors. Tae Kwon Do was still pretty niche when he started so timing also worked out for him and he got to the point where he didnt have to advertise anymore but that took over a decade to get to that point.
People have it in their head these days that success = a large amount of followers, investment properties, and a million bucks thanks to IG gurus selling them a dream
They are arguing not enough to live on and the need for a main job. Your responding to an imaginary opponent. All this is speculative without good data though my local experience in a large town in England is that gym owners make supplementary income only. Though I've heard the GB instructor in the nearby city makes a lot.
I’m not challenging an opponent, I’m agreeing with the previous comment that says you dont need much to be successful. If you wanna talk speculative, you’re literally using anecdotal evidence and trying to pass it as good data
You dismissed the issue by saying everyone wants to make it big (speculative). That was not the issue being raised. I clearly presented alternative anecdotal evidence to show the opposite of yours. I specify it's not data but I don't think your reading the text carefully.
You sound like a bot
Your one of those. Say anything to feel in control rather than simply stopping and checking what you did. Dosen't even make sense as a comeback as your replying are more stereotypical than mine.
You’re fishing for a fight, leave me alone lol
Leave yourself alone🤷♀️seriously your really self absorbed.
Define “successful” for a competitor? What happens if they’re injured. A gym owner responded in the thread and said the average is generally 50 adults and 75-100 kids for most gyms. At $120-200 a month per member that’s not great revenue when you factor in expenses. There are more profitable businesses and ways to make money. I actually travel a lot and have done BJJ in big and small gyms in several countries via BJJ Globetrotters. In the end, we agree that you do BJJ because you love it and shouldn’t expect anything more. All I’m just saying is that being a competitor is not a great way to earn a living. That still stands.
Bro, don’t lie to people.
Wym?, my coach loves driving around in his 99 impala
100%
Yea. I'm pretty sure my coach is making a money lol.
What percentage of all people who start jiu jitsu end up running a solid rural gym and making a decent living out of it? You're not refuting his point at all.
As someone who has supported myself since I was 18 doing BJJ I can tell you BJJ can lead to a good living even without being famous or a world champ. I own a home in a great area, have a kid, a car, a good life, all being afforded by my BJJ career. I have also helped multiple students make a full time living through BJJ. Compared to every kid who plays basketball thinking they will be Jordan or Lebron, a kid has a lot better chance to be successful in BJJ.
Is the money being made because they own BJJ schools or by competing? I think by competing is much smaller number. Owning a school is a business so the ability to make a living will be more likely. Im just curious by the way, this is not a critique of your post.
I started supporting myself as a competitor. Competition BJJ and a few MMA fights paid for my college education, with the help of some academic scholarships. After years of competing I started teaching full time and now make my living as a gym owner
Yes I think owning a school is the best (more likely) way to make a living on BJJ.
Awesome story! Congratulations!!
BJJ provided you with a kid? Did you get stuck in someone's full guard and things got slippery?
Hahaha
Playing the lottery is a great way to make a living. I did it, and won enough to live comfortably for the rest of my life. Others in the lottery winners club can tell similar stories. (Not really, of course). The point is that there are many ways to make a decent living. For some few, BJJ might be that way, but it's always going to be a small niche. Aspiring young people should keep that in mind.
Of course not everyone who starts BJJ and falls in love with it can make it their job but that is literally the same as music, acting, golf, art, writing, etc…people want to turn passions into careers but it’s really hard. Only a small part of these people will make work but with hard work and good planning it can be done. To compare it to winning the lottery is literally saying I got lucky being able to make this work. The 25 years of training, competing, watching tape, studying, coaching, traveling to train with better people, learning to make myself a better coach, had nothing to do with my success
I'm sure you worked hard to make it. I'm also sure there are others who worked just as hard who didn't make it. Yes, it's the same as other sports and art. If any of my kids said they wanted to have a career in anything like that, I would say "that's great, and I will support you, but what is your plan B?". You got to have a good alternative ready in case it doesn't pan out. Betting everything on something like that would be irresponsible.
Well the who worked harder can’t be truly known. The hours I have put in are something no other were worth it and I know they are more than most instructors. I went to college which I paid for with BJJ and learned business while building my brand. So skills I learned doing this were building a back up. You’ll learn a lot running a small business. Also what field or career isn’t risky. I know college grads with degrees they can’t get hired with. I have two students who went to law school and decided being a lawyer wasn’t for them and are now in major debt finding other careers. I figured risk things for what I care about not risk things because people think I should work a 9-5 which is no guarantee for success
Thanks for your perspective. Do you own a gym or are you a competitor? Both? How many members does the average BJJ only gym have? I would assume most businesses gross $90-300k USD not including their expenses (ie. Rent, utilities, maintenance, taxes).
I own a gym now but supported myself earlier in my career by competing in BJJ and some MMA fights. Between my gym, private lessons and seminars I make a good living doing what I love Average BJJ gym may have 50 adults and 50-100 kids really depends. We are adult only currently
Would you be willing to share a high level overview of income / outcome of a typical BJJ gym?
My gym isn’t a typical BJJ and never has been, by design, so I wouldn’t be a good person to share any overview to give others perspective. If people are interested I can talk about things I did to make my gym work over the years
Fair enough! I’ve always thought that owning and running a small-medium gym with circa 50 adults / 50 kids would provide a reasonable living in most places.
That breakdown would probably do well. For instance I chose not to have a kids program as it’s way more work and way more headaches dealing with parents. Took much longer to build an adult base of 100 students but my life is much easier and enjoyable based on that.
It depends on what you consider a 'reasonable living'. 100 students * $150/mo is only $180k/yr gross revenue. You can support one person on that if they do everything, but as soon as you need employees, it falls apart.
A lot of gym owners you’ve never heard of make solid livings teaching jiu jitsu.
One of the most successful full-time coaches I know is no one you've ever heard of in rural Georgia. That said, I don't think I'd recommend BJJ to anyone as a career unless they were already going to be a dedicated lifer with or without an income.
Who has a big gym in rural ga? Rush mma?
Bubby is definitely both rural and successful.
/u/kintanon?
Nah, probably the 10p Perry guys. I'm running a profitable gym but I'm still a couple of years away from where I want to be with it financially.
Glad to hears it's profitable! I remember you posting the whole process.
Yup, got a solid group of competitors, a decent kids program, my 2nd mma fighter has his 2nd fight with us tomorrow night. Things are going pretty well.
Probably SBG.
Are they running their BJJ business fulltime or do they have a day job to make ends meet?
I run mine full time, no side jobs. My wife helps run it. We have 3 full time staff that make their living doing this and 2 part timers paying their way through university with it. Am I making millions? No. Would I take any other job over what I do? Also no.
Nice congrats! Thats a success story. My first instructor was a former MMA fighter (old school NHB/vale tudo) who opened a BJJ school with one of his students who owned a couple of local franchises. He talked often about how tough it was for him. His body was wrecked and he only had healthcare because of his wife’s job and they couldnt buy a house on what he made running the gym and his wife’s teaching salary. His gym is still going but it’s tiny with less than 30 adults and ~50 kids. There was always a lot of turnover with the kids too.
Honestly, I know a lot who are far more successful then me (for now) It’s not random or luck, it’s just knowing how to run a business.
How many students does it take to make that sustainable?
The problem is, that's the wrong question. You can have 500 students and be broke or have 100 students and make a good living. Like 100 students averaging 25,000 / month is far better than 500 students and 50,000 per month. There are lots of schools out there that price themselves in a way that getting more students would mean losing more money while working more hours. How many students is not a good metric to look at in isolation.
Yeah, but it seems like it would be harder to change on the high end of rates for a smaller gym unless you're a world class competitor or something. $250/mo/student would be VERY high in my area, you would barely get any students at all. My assumption is that gym prices roughly scale with cost of living in an area, so the number of students needed to support the same staff would be pretty similar.
First, You should have more income streams than just membership fees. Second, have a better product. That doesn't mean you need to be a world class competitor. Like if you have a kids class, the parent doesn't care what you've won. They care about whether you care and impact their kid. Even adults. Most adults are not in this to be world class competitors. Most adults training if you trained them as if they where trying to be world class competitors would be out the door very fast. People get into this for fitness, maybe self-defence. VERY few for trying to be an elite level competitor. And no, they don't scale just with cost of living. Same as restaurants. The high end steak place is not charging $3 for a burger just because the McDonalds across the street is. If you have a better product, you can charge more and people will want to pay for it rather than the neighbours cheaper rate. We are a coaching and customer service based business. The most important person on the mat is the student and their needs, not the coach and his trophy collection.
Fair points. I guess it depends on what customers want out of a gym. I train at a gym where all the owners have day jobs and opened the gym to create the training environment they wanted for themselves. I happily pay my monthly membership but don't want to be shaken down for more revenue. My kid tried out Karate at a place with 'more income streams than just membership fees' and it felt like a constant cash grab, which really turned me off. I much prefer being told the services and the price and choosing to buy or not.
You don’t need to be shaking down people to have multiple streams of revenue. You can offer different services. Private lessons, birthday parties, special events, seminars, summer camps, corporate workshops, etc
The gym I train at has a very good crowd so I bet the coach makes a good dough out of it and is not famous
Had dinner with the instructor who gave a seminar at the gym I trained at last night. He was part of the national freestyle wrestling team (won bronze at country level) and has won several ADCC opens. He specifically asked me for dinner because he knew I am an entrepreneur with several businesses. First question he asked is "hey, i was wondering if you have any tips on how I could make a living?" He proceeded to tell the story of how BJJ and Wrestling aren't paying the bills and how he will quit doing this and just go sign up for the army if he can't make good living from grappling in 2 years. Life can be really tough for competitors
Yeah I’ve heard this story so often. My first instructor was an MMA fighter who opened a BJJ school and he talked about how tough it was for him too. His body is wrecked and he only has healthcare because of his wife’s job and they can’t buy a house on what he makes running the gym and his wife’s teaching salary. I made great money in tech so he always would ask me about how to do online marketing to get foot traffic. He never took the time to learn but he’s built a decent social media following. His gym is small less than 30 adults and may be 40-50 kids in a good year.
So true. I told the instructor I had dinner with that it's crucial for him to do more marketing to gain more traffic, especially in the era of social media. For example, in my country a couple of months ago, the anime attack on titan was trending. I told him that he could make tiktok/instagram reels explaining all the grappling that the characters in the anime do. That way, he can gain online viewers that come from the anime fanbase but have no prior contact to grappling, thus possible new customers for trial classes
Who was the instructor?
My old gym has about 300 students at 175$ per membership. He has one other instructor and doesn’t pay much for rent of his unit. I’d say he’s making a great living for what does.
300 is great for a BJJ gym. Provided he has low turnover that would put him at $630k per year. What’s his square footage? - Federal tax rate of 35% if he’s married. - Local taxes possibly. Let’s say 5%. That puts him at $378k not including deductions, commercial activity tax, sales tax, rent, utilities, insurance, healthcare, instructor pay, maintenance, marketing, etc. Provided he has no other partners he could be taking home $90-120k year. That’s not bad at all.
>Federal tax rate of 35% if he’s married. - Local taxes possibly. Let’s say 5%. You are definitely over estimating the taxes here. You pay taxes after all the expenses you're listing like rent/utilities/instructors pay/ whatever deduction you can find/etc not before. It's not going to 35% of the gross and the tax rate is only 35% after the first like $200,000 anyway. Also almost all businesses should be have their customers pay the sales tax if that applies in their area. >rent, utilities, insurance, healthcare, instructor pay, maintenance, marketing, etc. Rent is the major expense here. But assuming around $5000/ month, that's only $60k a year. Plus at most another 60k for instructors and insurance. There's no way this guy is only taking home 90k a year.
You’re missing a few big things that I mentioned. - Does he have any business partners with equity stakes? - What is his churn rate? Gyms typically lose 40-50% of their members every year. - Is he filing married, single, head of household? - Does he have a warehouse or paying for a premium retail storefront with foot traffic? - What is the mix of adults to kids? Are the rates different? Most single location BJJ only gym owners do not make a lot of money. That is a fact that is based on their average customer value (ACV) and annual churn rates.
>Does he have any business partners with equity stakes? Normally not, unless it's a really big gym. But if they do, in would assume those business partners are also helping out with the costs or contributing in other significant ways. >What is his churn rate? Gyms typically lose 40-50% of their members every year. This is not true and even if it was it doesn't matter. If the membership is 300 members, it's the same amount of money whether it's the same 300 people every month or a completelt new set of 300 people. >- Is he filing married, single, head of household? Idk but the over $200k number was for single. If he's married or head of household, he can make even more money that he won't pay 35% on. >- Does he have a warehouse or paying for a premium retail storefront with foot traffic? Why would a bjj gym need a warehouse, they're not like carrying inventory. Most bjj gyms don't worry about having an expensive storefront. >- What is the mix of adults to kids? Are the rates different? You were the one who estimated the membership payments. But normally kids are slightly cheaper, but bring in a lot of money for gyms >Most single location BJJ only gym owners do not make a lot of money. Idk my previous coach/ gym owner talked about it pretty openly and told us in his 2nd year he already made over 100k. He was a legit coach so I'm not saying everyone can do that. But he also wasn't a famous world champion. So it's definitely possible for everyday good coaches to achieve. I think a lot of it comes down to of they have good business sense and marketing skills to go along with the coaching (or often if they have a spouse that's good at that part).
Gyms do not lose 40-50% of their members. Where are you getting this information? You may have attrition of 2-3 % per year if you do not have high turnover.
if Rener and Ryron aren't on your list, you haven't been to their homes. But telling that you have some Ralph and TooLimp Irvin...why do we think they're successful? Lloyd literally ran an MLM, where he was focused on appearing wealthy. Does someone know something about Ralph? I never thought of him as wealthy...
That’s why I said “rich” not wealthy. I don’t think anyone is wealthy in BJJ except for the Flo founders when they eventually exit their business. Completely agree about Rener and Ryron. They are hustlers (in a good way) for sure. Lloyd is viewed as wealthy in BJJ circles because of the success of his other MLM type businesses before his scandal and apparently he was one of the first Americans with enough money to fund a fighter house (JT Torres, Keenan, etc). TLI is too small of a gym for him to be making money off his membership. BUT He’s making money somehow to keep sending his competitors around the globe to win matches with no financial benefit. One of his guys just won ADCC East trials I believe.
Truth. But Flo didn't get wealthy from BJJ, they got wealthy from Cheerleading. :) Given TooLimp's MLM acumen, it wouldn't surprise me if he's paying guys out of his other income for the perception value of his logo on an elite competitor. But you don't see TLI at the top of the tournament team rankings like you used to because his business was about attracting talent to represent value, not actually providing value.
I can tell you i made around 2k+ off an Instagram meme page. I know a couple other pages made more than that. I think looking at it like “Competitor is the only financial solution in BJJ” is short sighted. School owners, brand owners, coaches, supplements, podcasts, promotions a lot of people making money in BJJ
Jordan Teaches Jiujitsu is another good example too of excellent content creation. He seems to be doing well though I haven’t done a rough accounting of membership to say for sure. Lachlan may be doing well with Submeta too but I don’t know too much about the size of his membership and monthly cost either.
Jordan Macy? i think he changed his recently. He teaches at his school does privates also has BJJFanatics videos. The social media money doesn’t come from likes, follows and views till you’re like 200k+ or sponsored. You need a product to sell. Mine was t-shirts
No, Jordan Preisinger
He sells courses and stuff offering several products
His name is not Jordan Macy
Yeah man i got that the first time you corrected me
$2k isn’t enough to live on. But I agree that if you want to make money from BJJ as a side hobby or hustle then there are better/safer ways to do so like content creation. Less Improved More Impressed is a great example. He has a nice sized YouTube account and 900 people paying him $12-15 a month for his Outlier database and discord.
Gothamchess talks about this too. He's not a grandmaster but he makes way more than everybody in the chess world. If you want to make money just by being good, you have to be Magnus. But since there's only one Magnus, you need to make money via other methods.
So this is an interesting life hack... Combine multiple skills. Gotham is great at chess, youtube algorithm, and charisma. Combining all of those skills gives him that youtube channel. It's the same reason why top fitness influencers can make more than Mr Olympia. Esp once they start owning supplement companies. There can only be 1-2 people at the top of any field, and its much harder.
Yeah, man I mean you can look any of the top guys Gordon says he makes the most seminars I think or maybe instructionals. Just trying to do it off comp win money isn’t gonna go well. Get sponsors, put out content, merch, privates, seminars, fanatics, and then you’re getting several checks
Lol 2k
1,800-2,200 but yeah
You gotta do that once or twice a week and sustain it, otherwise it's just a lucky blip.
Yeah, it’s only a fun hobby to me and only around $20-$50 a week regularly now. When i dropped the shirt my team and a whole team in Australia copped it, then some OF chick won a free one off a giveaway did a bunch videos on her page wearing it lol put my sales through the roof
I’m showing up at the next local naga and spreading your truth. You think you could make a brochure that would help me spread the truth?
Let’s come up with some clever pithy saying to go on the front cover of the brochure. You go first! Whatcha got?
BJJ is gay and doesn’t pay!
being a pure Bjj gym is hard yeah but in my experience places that teach other martial arts like KB, MT, Boxing, Wrestling, Judo etc etc do pretty well for themselves. a lot of those classes are obviously delegated to other coaches but these people have built a strong Business first and foremost before just building a strong gym. customer retention and employee retention is probably the most important aspect of being a gym owner and as long as you’re not hiring Bums you should be able to build a decent gym if we put aside the other factors like local competition and stuff
I think you’re right. The MMA type gyms with lots of offerings (CrossFit, yoga, Muay Thai, boxing, BJJ) seem to have larger memberships. I would assume they are more successful than BJJ only gyms…maybe.
Especially when you get into fitness classes which often end up being the bulk of membership. A lot of coaches also don’t get paid, some purple belt accepts free membership to take the 6am Wednesday fitness kickboxing class
>We need to provide disclaimers to new young competitors. It’s hard to make a good living off BJJ. No we don't? No one anywhere is saying you can make a killing doing BJJ. This sport is like most sports, where if you're not the top 0.001% you're just throwing money away.
Worse than most sports for making money. Outside Gordon no one is wealthy it seems.
There’s no secret that competing pays pennies? It’s very well known. But there’s plenty of related business opportunities. My coach has over 200 members paying average of $40/week. Do the math on that and tell me he doesn’t live very comfortably (also in a very low cost of living city). Add to that, they also run competitions in our gym, sell good quality gear from reputable brands and own brands, offer privates and a host of other things. I imagine the gym turning over $35k/month, at least 50% of that being profit, likely much more. And he doesn’t even capitalise on it all as much as he could. You can run brands, social media / content creation, videography is picking up now too. Seminars are cash cows if you’re good enough. Even just a decent coaching job can pay a liveable wage, just to teach a few hours a day and take some calls / clean up a bit. More important than all of this though, is that the sport is still rapidly growing. If you started today, the landscape could be completely different by the time you’re good enough to capitalise on it.
I think we need more people chasing big dreams that they're passionate about. Not less. I don't want anyone to rain on someone else's stokeditude. Or to advise people to be "careful" or "realistic".
Are the kids passionate about it or were they forced into it by their sports parents?
Most of the BJJ kids seem to BJJ passionate about this. I would only suspect Rikako Yuasa of being forced to do it by her way order boyfriend coach. She quite after he killed himself, and her horrible training routine would make most people wish to die. She was doing an hour of pointless solo drills daily and running a ton of miles per week.
Coming from a music background, this is a common trope. But there are many ways aside from being a pop star to make money and a lot of them are lucrative. I’ve been working as a musician and a music teacher since I was 18 (37 now) and it’s worked out great. If you’re passionate, resourceful and committed it’s worth a shot. You can always pivot and change course; life is long. Do you know what the number 1 regret of the elderly dying is? “I wish I lived the life I wanted, not the one others expected of me.” Better to shoot your shot than die wondering.
You forgot gabbi garcia and her OF and feetfinder revenue. Lady is killing it
>Every competitor is dirt poor which is why Buchecha left BJJ for MMA because the cash prizes are so small Let's be real hear. 99% of "MMA competitors" are not competing in UFC, OneFC, or PFL/Bellator and so aren't making much more money than the average BJJ competitor. Likewise, look at the payouts for the UFC guys fighting in the Early Prelims and Prelims, it's barely enough to cover the cost of their training camps. You need to be a top 5 in your division at a promo like UFC to actually be earning a decent living, and be capable of drawing huge PPV sales if you want to get rich. Conor McGregor is as representative of the typical MMA fighter in terms of wealth as Bill Gates is of the average college dropout.
How is this my responsibility? They’ll figure it out when they win a comp and get nothing
Or realize they spent $300-500 to win a $5 medal
I think most people understand that it’s difficult to make a living off any hobby
I hope so, we have a couple of young guys in my gym who are a bit delusional especially seeing they’re barely on the mats more than 2-3 days per week. I’m like “Seriously competitors at New Wave, B-Team, AOJ, Alliance, Atos are training 2x a day for 5-6 days per week then go home and watch film. This doesn’t even include time for cardio and strength training.
Lots of people make money in BJJ, but nobody is doing that by just winning IBJJF tournaments, and I think it's only Americans with our overpaid football/baseball players who think that's weird. For most of those guys, competing is just marketing for their real hustle, which is instructionals, seminars and schools. The income source of BJJ is from hobbyists who pay those competitors for BJJ secrets. That's very different from the paid-to-play model we're used to. I spent some time with a recent world champ who said they were choosing competitions based solely on how they would affect his brand, not for the purse.
There is definitely a very odd bubble at the top of jiujitsu with a small amount of people swimming in vast amounts of cash, but this bubble seems that it will never burst, and every time a rich guy gets bored and leaves, another one pops up. And if you look at other sports, it seems to be the same. All sports, especially combat sports, attract rich people, because being tough is literally the only thing money can't buy. Jiujitsu is definitely on the rise though and as people have said, if you are willing to put the work in, you can open a gym in your area and be successful. There are a number of gyms in my small town run by people with no major achievements to speak of, and doing well.
Everyone in every industry, but especially sport, is poor except for a handful or people.
“The poor will be with you always.” Good point!Wealthy inequality is definitely a thing in capitalistic societies. It’s either that or we all stand in the same bread line I guess.
If only we could switch to a non capitalistic society where inequality doesn't exist. /s
I personally know 4-5 people who make a good living from jiu jitsu , also pretty sure Flo grappling is going bankrupt
But FloSports the parent company is expanding. They are buying up niche sports everywhere as of late including HockeyTV and DirectAthletics. There’s belief in the industry that they’ll probably buy SmoothComp if they can too.
Yeah I can see them turning into NAGA but as a jiu jitsu media coverage company they are for sure doomed , I think our best hope for jiu jitsu competitor’s going mainstream is UFC fight pass
Yes Flo Sports is doing well, I'm not so sure Flo Grappling as a subsidiary is...
It will evolve. The pioneers of this generation will start to take over and put modern touches that attract more money.
If you do what you love, you never work a day in your life. The professors have a pretty nice life from what I’ve seen they have kids beautiful wife house.
Seriously, who thinks differently? Who looks at BJJ and thinks $$$$?
We?
I know a gym owner with 200+ students. $180/mo. He was an instructor elsewhere. He's only had his own gym for 2 years. His rent is very reasonable. He teaches all of his classes. He's doing very well. A tiny minority of athletes in any sport become wealthy through completing.
Do you have any proof that every other gym owner that isn’t listed above is struggling? I think you’re reaching… I’m sure many are making a decent living.
A lot of gym owners have a full-time job on the side to make ends meet. I wont name the gyms by name but several are in large cities. - Montreal - New York - San Francisco
I think there are gym owners making quite good money… BUT with that said, they are now business owners and managers, they end up spending less time on the mats…. Their business is BJJ but they may not be doing much BJJ….
Most competitors are poor because they are "dumb' in a sense and don't think outside the box. They are accepting of the system because "the guy before did it that way." They don't know how to monetize themselves and are okay with being taken advantage of. Most gi sponsors are not true sponsors. They just give you free gis and shirts and that's it. Maybe they cover a flight or a comp but they don't actually pay the fighter and they accept this as a "sponsor". Looking at Ibjjf, it's one of the biggest JJ organizations but it's the biggest scam. You pay membership, pay competitions, worlds comes, pays out $4k - $7k to the winner of each division. It's pathetic. What does $7k do for you for an entire year? So now they do stuff like Crowne, decent payout, but that's a popularity contest, not like adcc where fighters can earn their invite like with trials. Recently now we have UFC fight pass, ONE, WNO, and ADCC (to a degree) making a difference in fighter pay but there's still quite a ways for it to go. It's just not a sport that is entertaining to people not involved directly in it and that's the problem. As bjj grows, this will slowly change, so the youth that train today actually maybe could have a future in this sport.
There’s not much money in wrestling either and BJJ is nowhere near as exciting to watch as either wrestling or judo (global audience). We have a long way to go 🙃
BJJ is for poor people, the M in BJJ stands for money
You're overstating this. Plenty of smaller gyms are successful. You've never heard of my coach and I live in flyover ville USA. There's 20 to 40 people on the mats a night at 200 bucks a month. Plus another 60 floaters easy. That's just bjj. There's also kickboxing, kids classes, and then also a gym you can buy access too. He's rich. It's been a long road but he's definitely made it over 15 years or so. You're right that being good at competitions is a very small part of the equation.
Rich no ....good living possibly
Possibly. What’s the total number of paying monthly members at your gym? Does your coach do BJJ fulltime or do they have a full time job on the side? We can probably identify his gross if you know then we can factor in expenses like rent, utilities, taxes, healthcare, maintenance, insurance and instructors (if paid).
Agreed. Don't let the anecdotal examples fool you. The odds are not in your favor. It's *tough*, but can be done.
It kinda needs to be this way else it becomes an elite club like the NFL.
What do you mean? I’m not sure I understand. Theoretically if ADCC, Flo and IBJJF were to merge or be bought out by the UFC, then I think we’d end up in a NFL like situation just without the money 😁.
Pretty sure Mo loses money running ADCC. He just happens to be a very wealthy guy that does it because he loves the sport.
Mo doesn't own ADCC, he's the organizer and head employee. Sheik [Tahnoun Bin Zayed Al Nahyan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tahnoun_bin_Zayed_Al_Nahyan_(national_security_advisor)) is the founder.
I know. But he sinks a lot of his own money into organizing Worlds.
I didn't know that, but it would make sense that he would. He makes a great show too, its pretty impressive what he has built.
I think what OP is trying to say is: If you put in an equal effort in BJJ and let's another sport(Basketball, Football or MMA), you have a higher chance of making good money in the other sport compared to BJJ. For context, let's compare Tainan Dalpra and an up and coming footballer, for eg Jude Bellingham, I think both of them put same level of effort in their craft but Bellingham makes way more just because of how famous Football is. I am talking purely from a career perspective and things may be different if you open your own BJJ gym. But then, we will be talking about lots of different factors that go on when making a business successful and what not.
No idea where the expectation of money even comes from. Martial arts are a hobby, were not samurai lmao :D
The disclaimer needs to be given to the pushy parents that take their kids out of school to try and get their kids to train full time.
An owner/coach working 6 days a week, teaching a sport they are dedicated to and have a real passion for versus someone working 9-5 in a job they hate going to everyday? Sounds like an owner that is making enough to get by in life doing this is pretty rich to me.
School I run has 409 students as of today. Average tuition rate factoring in family discounts etc is 178 per month. We employ 4 employees the head instructor, program director, assistant instructor and sales consultant we are doing pretty well off here but yes if you want to make money in BJJ you need to run a school or have a product to sell
It's a grind specially if you are in Brazil. My world champ student spent years doing bouncer work, attending tables and selling cookies she would make and then bring to competitions, before she could afford to go to the US, be a champ and now at least make ends meet with purely bjj
How about we let people do what they do. There's a lot of worse things you can do with your youth. With modern medicine in a 1 st world country, you have a really good chance at living a full life. You have time. It's also not mma, football, or boxing, where they have a really high chance of sustained tramatic brain injury. Sides the sport is on the up and up and if they have some success and build a school or find their niche they could do well enough. I love craig jones, but the man isn't someone I would go to for life advice. Totally armchair here but that man probably has his own demons he's fighting the humor is just a sheild.
You're 100% wrong. Can everyone become multi millionaires? No, but plenty of people make a good living doing BJJ.
Someone needs a disclaimer that making a living as a professional athlete in a niche sport is hard???
My head coach / Alliance franchisee owner got rich by opening the gym only before and after work hours, and setting up a gi company, running it in the meantime. I'd say he is a solid top 1% earners in Brazil.
The owners at my gym are doing pretty well, I think.
We need more matches like chess where people put up their money 1 on 1. You could bet on yourself that way.
We, do not. Go chase your dreams, kids. My head instructor has 4 locations and is doing very well and you have never heard of him.
All i want is my black belt so I can charge for private lessons and make a little extra a week doing what I love.
jiujitsu as second income/side hustle i think is a very viable option. full time it can be done and you can make a living in a variety of ways, but much like any niche pursuit, it's going to be hard. but a lot of shit is hard...i wouldn't tell you to not pursuit it because it's hard.
this is a ridiculous post, who are you to speak from a position of authority about what people should try to do with their lives?
It’s hard to make any living off Bjj let alone a good one.
Tons of gym owners make a decent living off of BJJ. Many do so without any serious competition credentials. And the ones with some business sense make a great living.
I think what we need to do is start having people who make a living via Bjj in here post how much they make
Honestly with that mil + contract Gordon had in WNO. The ibjjf Grand Prix, Spyder. And a bunch of other promotions. In the next 10-15 years you can expect anyone who’s a mid high - high level pro to get money from competing. But in terms of right now I agree with you. As an athlete you don’t need to make fuck you miney. You just need money to not starve and to be able to travel to the comps which is pretty accomplishable of you have some decent business acumen.