At Rowdy Ronda Inc., CEO Rousey has her life in order
This is one 28-year-old woman with her life in order.
She sets aside a portion of her multimillion-dollar income for retirement.
She and her mom check expenses with her accountant every quarter to ensure her money is being spent correctly.
She owns her home facing the waves at Venice Beach, Calif.
She’s already written and sold her life’s story as part of a multibook deal.
And while she’s making a fortune in her current job, she’s already building a second career — as a movie star, of course.
Welcome to Rowdy Ronda Inc., where president and CEO Ronda Rousey has become a mainstream celebrity, one arm twist and punch at a time.
In a recent interview, Rousey joined her business partner and mentor, Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White, for a frank discussion of the former Los Angeles bartender’s meteoric ascent to become UFC’s main pay-per-view attraction.
The undefeated 135-pound bantamweight champion is now the biggest meal ticket for UFC, the Las Vegas-based mixed martial arts promotion, production and media company controlled by Zuffa LLC.
Lorenzo Fertitta, Zuffa’s CEO, oversees a $2 billion global MMA empire that extends to Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. UFC has 574 fighters on its roster, including 56 women.
Rousey’s own corporate empire includes income from UFC events that pay her about $2 million per fight, endorsement deals worth about $3 million annually and her paychecks from acting. Her third film role is in “Entourage,” which debuts June 3.
“I’m too busy making money to spend it,” said Rousey, whose corporate name echoes her MMA nickname.
She’s also a money-maker for UFC. When Rousey fights, pay-per-view buys — UFC’s financial lifeblood — go up.
White said UFC’s most lucrative PPV event would be a fight between Rousey and Christiane “Cyborg” Justino, a 145-pounder who would have to shed 10 pounds to fight Rousey.
A Rousey-Justino showdown would generate at least 2 million PPV buys, which would shatter the UFC record of about 1.6 million, he said.
“That’s our version of Pacquiao-Mayweather,” White said.
White said America is fascinated with Rousey because she’s a good-looking, down-to-earth and intelligent fighter who can legally inflict more physical pain than just about any woman on earth.
“There’s never been a scenario like this before. She can kick a man’s ass, and that makes her fascinating,” White said. “She has changed the way we look at women.”
Rousey’s not the first female MMA fighter to cross over to film, though she’s already the most successful. Gina Carano, who fought in the Strikeforce MMA organization, appeared on the “American Gladiators” television show and had roles in movies such as “Haywire,” “Fast &Furious 6” and “In the Blood.”
Moreover, Rousey will take a star turn in an action movie, “Mile 22,” with Peter Berg and Iko Uwais, in 2016. After her fighting career ends, she plans to continue acting and eventually produce movies, too.
It’s far more common for male fighters to make it in Hollywood. Those ranks include former UFC stars Chuck Liddell, Randy Couture, Quinton “Rampage” Jackson and Cung Le, who followed in the footsteps of action movie stars from Bruce Lee to Chuck Norris who have used martial arts to reach fame and fortune in front of the camera.
‘MY FIGHT/YOUR FIGHT’
Rousey has written about her career arc from growing up in the Minot, N.D., and Los Angeles areas to her love for judo to her first professional MMA fight in March 2011 in her memoir, “My Fight/Your Fight,” released May 12. Rousey and her sports writer sister, Maria Burns Ortiz, penned the book and will split the revenue.
Rousey explained in the book how she nearly died as a baby because the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. Her father killed himself when she was 8 after suffering a devastating back injury in a sledding accident.
She inherited her love for judo from her mother, a 1984 judo world champion, and competed in the Olympics in 2004 and again in 2008, taking the bronze medal. She transitioned from judo to MMA, training at California’s Glendale Fighting Club in 2010.
The fighter/Olympian/actress/writer/business entrepreneur is no stranger to Las Vegas, where she entered the MMA cage for a Vegas-based amateur organization, Tuff-N-Uff, winning bouts in November 2010 and January 2011 at The Orleans.
Rousey’s debut amateur MMA fight was in Oxnard, Calif., on Aug. 6, 2010, when she defeated Hayden Munoz in 23 seconds.
From the start, Rousey was smart about her finances.
“She’s a much better businesswoman than the average athlete,” said Rousey’s mother, AnnMaria De Mars, herself a business owner, college professor and statistician.
“We‘ve had lot of discussions about taxes, contracts, making sure you have a lawyer to look it over,” De Mars said. “She also heard it from her sister, who wrote about athletes getting big contracts and then filing for bankruptcy three years later.”
White praised De Mars for her judo skills and for her way with numbers.
“CFO,” White said of De Mars’ role as unofficial chief financial officer of Rowdy Ronda Inc.
De Mars said she and Ortiz have schooled Ronda on being responsible with her money.
Her Los Angeles-based movie agent, Brad Slater, put it this way: “She’s real savvy with money. She’s not a flashy, flamboyant person. She owns her home, but she doesn’t live a huge, extravagant lifestyle. It’s refreshing.”
THE OCTAGON AND BEYOND
UFC’s biggest star is seemingly everywhere these days. Rousey has recently appeared on Howard Stern’s radio program, “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and “Access Hollywood.”
Sports Illustrated featured Rousey on its cover this month and posted a video of nearly 14 minutes showing a playful side of Rousey, who, in one scene, returns to the Los Angeles bar called Redwood, where she once worked as both bouncer and bartender, to mix a cocktail for old time’s sake.
The SI cover shows Rousey, with “UFC” emblazoned on her sports top and also on her shorts.
Rousey readily credits her fighting ability for making her a celebrity far beyond the Octagon.
“Nobody was hitting me up while I was bartending,” Rousey said.
Rowdy Ronda Inc. has two branches — fighting and movies. On the fighting side, Rousey’s coach is Edmond Tarverdyan. She also hires a team of sparring partners.
On the movie half, Rousey signed with Slater, of the William Morris Endeavor agency, to line up cinematic gigs and sponsorships that include deals with Reebok, Buffalo Jeans, MetroPCS and Monster headphones. Slater said Rousey will also appear in a Carl’s Jr. TV commercial and is about to sign a one-year deal with a video game company.
“She told me, ‘Every ounce of energy that I put in to be a champion in UFC, I’ll put that into being a great actress,’ ” Slater said.
With that in mind, Slater arranged 30 to 40 meetings for Rousey to chat with movie executives. His strategy was to get an intelligent, attractive woman who also happens to be the world’s premier female MMA athlete in front of as many movie executives as possible. He didn’t have to throw a big sales pitch.
“Nobody sells Ronda Rousey better than Ronda Rousey,” he said.
Her big movie break came with Sylvester Stallone and “The Expendables” franchise.
“I set her up with as many producers and movie executives as I could. That led to ‘The Expendables.’ That opened the flood gates a little,” said Slater, whose clients include Kevin Costner, Michael Strahan and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
“If she wanted be a lawyer, she’d be a lawyer. If she wanted to be a doctor, she’d be a doctor,” the agent said. “She walks in the room and she’s explosive.”
As a fighter, Rousey is a natural for parts that demand a physical female role. Yet, she welcomes the challenge.
“It’s a brand-new skill. I have to start from scratch,” Rousey said. “I feel fighting is like a mountain I have climbed and I want to climb another mountain range. There’s a whole other range out there, and I’m not ready to camp out in the valley.”
But with this new mainstream pop culture fame comes other issues. Rowdy Ronda Inc. also pays for security.
“There are some stalkers out there,” White said.
NEVER SAY NEVER
Remarkably, her explosion into pop culture is based on a professional MMA fighting career of just 11 fights, including the past five with UFC. Rousey won eight of the 11 fights in less than a minute, usually deploying her signature “armbar” move to pop her opponent’s arm out of its socket much the way a hungry relative rips the leg off a Thanksgiving turkey. Her next match is at UFC 190 on Aug. 1, against undefeated Brazilian Bethe Correia in Rio de Janeiro.
When she fights, Rousey draws a fee from UFC, a cut of the PPV revenues, a fight purse and a bonus if she wins — totaling $2 million, according to a source familiar with the compensation.
Rousey doesn’t discuss Rowdy Ronda Inc. revenue numbers.
“It’s not anyone’s business,” she says.
In 2011 White, the bombastic UFC president, was asked if women would ever fight in UFC events.
“Never,” was his one-word reply.
A few months later a woman made him eat that word. Rousey showed up at a UFC fight show in Las Vegas and called him out.
In the foreword of Rousey’s book, White recalls Rousey telling him: “I’m gonna fight for you someday and I’m going to be your first female world champion.”
And then she backed it up.
White said he “knew that she was something special” after seeing her fight in Strikeforce, which UFC had acquired.
White and Rousey have been business partners and friends ever since.
“He’s made me feel like we’re in this together,” Rousey said. “There’s never any silent problems. There’s no passive-aggressive. Everything is immediately addressed.”
In an age of athletes building personal brands, what exactly does the Rowdy Ronda Inc. brand stand for?
There’s Rousey, the MMA ninja with a facial expression so fierce in the Octagon that it’s hard to believe she can also be so silly outside the cage. Consider a recent video she posted to her Instagram that shows her dancing with a moving Groot toy from “Guardians of the Galaxy.”
There’s Rousey the actor, who has some juicy lines — and MMA moves — in the “Entourage” trailer, which includes a scene where she pummels a guy who wants to date her.
Not just tough and focused, Rousey is also attractive, and has appeared in the ESPN The Magazine Body Issue, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition and in Maxim magazine.
Yet with all those attributes, Rousey finds its difficult to describe herself.
“You can’t categorize me in one saying,” Rousey said. “It’s hard to pin down one description.”
Rousey’s mother said her daughter employs a good marketing tactic — just being herself.
“Unfiltered” was the way De Mars described her daughter’s brand.
“Ronda has made a very wise decision. Her public persona is the person she really is. She’s pretty unfiltered in life,” De Mars said. “What you see is what you get.”
Contact reporter Alan Snel at asnel@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5273. Find him on Twitter: @BicycleManSnel
