First Things First

Recently there has a. been a lot of conversation about pay in professional Brazilian jiu-jitsu. When I heard that Sapateiro Invitational was hosting a $100,000 tournament I had to learn more so I reached out to the founder, Josh Leduc.

If you’re interested in pay in professional grappling, and increasing it, this one is for you.

Before we get started I want to let you know about a new tool to help you learn Brazilian jiu-jitsu. My friends at Digitsu released a fun new BJJ AI chatbot! If you have questions about Brazilian jiu-jitsu, here is a great place to start.

Josh, can you give us some background information on the Sapateiro Invitational?

Sure. I like to say it’s the hardest tournament that no one has ever heard of. That’s mainly because I started doing it when I was a 21 year old kid and I have lost a bunch of footage.

We actually had a match between Nathan Orchard and Craig Jones in one of our first ones. Craig flying triangled him and just held it for like 8 minutes. Then Orchard got out and heel hooked in like the last 30 seconds. It was incredible.

We threw our first event in March 2016. I saw Finishers and thought, “I can do that.” Turns out, it’s much harder than it looks. Those guys are a huge inspiration, Zach and JM. Good dudes.

At the time there were a couple of tournaments in Florida doing cash prizes for the absolute division. I started Sapateiro because I wanted to help grapplers get paid.

Okay so that brings me to my next question. I don’t want to bury the lead too much. The 100k…how are you paying for it?

So I’ve been doing this for about 8 years. I’ve put on about 35 Sapateiros and some smaller shows. Plus I own a gym, I sell watches. I have a lot of revenue streams to put into this.

My day job is in financial technology so I’m super interested in the intersection of martial arts and finance. Do you have investors? A TV deal? Sponsors? How are you paying people?

Yeah it’s all of that. There are a lot of ways to get there. So when I thought about doing a 100 thousand dollar payday I just worked backward from there. That’s just $8400 a month.

We do qualifiers all year. At every qualifier we’re selling merch and tickets. That brings in a lot. Plus we have a deal with Enigma TV. I went with Enigma because they’re basically the anti Flo. I used to be very critical and anti Flo but I’m not anymore. I just think they need a competitor.

But really it’s not about this year. It’s about year two, year three. I signed a deal with Enigma that will be better for us in the long run. I want to get to a quarter million payday.

Now that you’re paying as much as you are, what do you think about the recent comments about ADCC’s pay?

Really I think it’s two parts. One, people are ungrateful.

Everyone wants to make more money but ADCC has lost money every year. I think Mo paid out more than a quarter million last year to cover all of the athlete expenses. If it wasn’t for Mo and ADCC, we wouldn’t be doing this. 

Two, Mo has good financial backing but he’s thinking long term. You have to look at this like it’s a business. I’m confident they will pay more. I think ADCC needs to secure a major corporate sponsorship though.

I just want to know why FloGrappling isn’t putting out more money? Why aren’t they doing a 100k tournament? I think everyone needs to do a big tournament and pay more.

I heard Fight Pass Invitational is paying well but they’re only doing one offs. They’re not a huge competitor.

Sapateiro’s first tournament is not the goal. I don’t want to just do one season. I’m thinking about season two, three, and all that.

Where do you think professional jiujitsu as a whole is headed? What’s the ceiling?

I think someone needs to take the risk and get it out from behind the paywall. But to do that we need to get some more sponsorship money or corporate partnerships.

I think I saw that the WNBA had 250,000 live viewers at one point. Jiu-jitsu is nowhere near that for most of our events.

I think we can get shows on ESPN. Like a small ESPN channel is our ceiling. The real thing is someone needs to take the risk of getting it out from the paywall.

I think it’s great what BMac is doing to grow the sport. He’s putting out some of The PGF for free on Youtube and I think the finals are on Fight Pass?

What do you think about so many shows having so many different rules? Do you think the sport needs one ruleset?

I think every show just needs someone to explain the rules to the crowd. It doesn’t have to be everyone under one ruleset. I think it’s good that we have promotions like EBI, IBJJF, ADCC, and other sub only events.

I like what the ADCC opens are doing. Six minute minute matches are as close to perfect as we can get for action.

EBI was great, but I think too many people gamed the system. EBI was great for the athletes though.

You know, I always say this, who was the wealthiest grappler before Gordon? It was Garry Tonon. Garry is one of the wealthiest grapplers and he’s never won a world title. He’s just exciting and he always brings a show.

How can people watch and support?

Enigma TV. It’s only $6.99 per month. April 13th is our next qualifier.  You can follow our Instagram and Facebook for updates but everything is on Enigma TV.

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