Jessica Andrade is a former title challenger and currently the No. 2 ranked UFC women’s strawweight contender. That being said, it would appear that the world class mixed martial artist still experiences financial woes.
Speaking to MMA Fighting, Jessica Andrade recently offered a few words ahead of her UFC 228 fight against Karolina Kowalkiewicz.
“I’m going to my 14th fight in the UFC and it’s really difficult to get sponsors, to get people who want to help you financially. Sometimes we have to sell UFC clothes, backpack, gloves, stuff like that, to make some extra money to finish a camp. It’s quite difficult, but we go on.”
“It’s difficult, but we get by the way we can, right? Sometimes we bake a cake and sell, we get by the way we can. It’s sad that we have to sell our training gear, things we get in fights that are a good memory of what we had there, but we’ll get new stuff later [laughs]. I have so many of these white hoodies with my name on that no problem selling one, right?
“When I got in the UFC, we would always get a little extra pay-per-view bonus and everything else. We won’t make that much anymore because of Reebok. But we would always get an extra percentage of the card. So if it was a good card, every athlete would get a small percentage of the pay-per-view, a percentage of the video game. We don’t get that today anymore.
“I think that should come back, us getting those extra little bonuses. In my first fights, I got $8,000 outside of my purse and sponsors. When I was short of money, that little bonus came and wow, that really helped [laughs]. That was great, that really helped us. I think we should have that again.
“But I’m really happy with my job, really happy with how much I’m paid. I think it can get better, but it’s good for me for now.”
