Conor McGregor now belongs to the small, fortunate category of Irish people in their early 30s who don’t have any worries about buying a house – in Dublin or anywhere else.
The Notorious’s manifest destiny was made complete this week when Forbes announced him top of the heap of sports earners in the world in 2020. McGregor has dwarfed them all, earning $180 million (€148.5 million) to comfortably out-Benjamin the mainstream names, whom you can probably guess. Sky high! Look at the view from up here, Ma. It’s beautiful.
Wave down at Messi ($130 million). There's LeBron ($96 million) and old Tom Brady and Federer. But those suckers actually had to play ball and to spend hours – seasons – working for their supper. McGregor pulled down that money despite just appearing in the octagon – the MMA fight cage – for all of 40 seconds in 2020.
It's a hell of a trick. How did he do it? It will be five years this November since McGregor mania reached its peak, when he beat Eddie Alvarez in the lightweight fight that was the biggest – and most heavily promoted – in UFC history.
Since then, he has featured in three MMA fights, for a total of six minutes and five seconds in the octagon. He lost two, the first after an ugly prelude to the Khabib Nurmagomedov fight in 2018, the second when he was punched into submission by Dustin Poirier last January. Over that time, McGregor also starred in the exhibition boxing fight with Floyd Mayweather, an unabashed hype-and-trash show which became the second-biggest draw in pay-per-view history, appeared in court and launched his own brand of whiskey.
Less than half of the roster of 580 UFC fighters earn over six figures. McGregor isn't part of that stable. He's his own planet
If a mainstream Irish sportsperson – a football player or golfer, say – became the biggest-earning sports star in the world, it would imply an extraordinary level of performance. But McGregor somehow managed to harness the comparatively fringe sport of UFC and insert himself into the mainstream.
His earnings are an aberration within his sport. Nurmagomedov earned the most from UFC last year, with just over $6 million. Then comes McGregor with $3 million. The 10th-highest earner, Stipe Miocic, earned just $790,000. Less than half of the roster of 580 UFC fighters earn over six figures. McGregor isn’t part of that stable. He’s his own planet.
There has been something fated about his rise. It was, at the very least, a bizarre coincidence that Trinity College invited Dana White, the padrone of UFC, to Dublin for an honorary patronage just as McGregor was breaking out in 2013. White couldn't have known what he was bargaining with when he took McGregor on. Whatever about McGregor's talents as a fighter, he was inheriting someone with a genius instinct for marketing and self-invention.
Blank canvas
There’s a photo you sometimes see of McGregor in his MMA infancy, circa 2008 (Celtic Tiger Ireland going down the sinkhole, the IMF soon to arrive) smiling and clean-cut. It’s the blank canvas of the persona he would create: the crafted body tattoos, the hipster beard, the dandified aura, the bragsterism and promise of ultraviolence. Something borrowed, something blue: it all works.
He backed it up with showmanship and wins, communicating the eerie sense of invincibility which he transferred into a blank-eyed conviction in the ring. MMA, when mass-marketed, seemed wild and authentic in comparison against the blandly marketed entertainments of NBA or the Premier League.
The reviews of McGregor's Proper Twelve Irish Whiskey from the whiskey cognoscenti were not kind. It didn't matter. McGregor could sell snow to Eskimos
The late-night weekend fights were perfect party excuses across the world and McGregor – self-made, fearless, preaching to the outsider – was a ready-made anti-hero. He had an army of willing conscripts. His rise coincided with the Instagram era and he was sharp to marshal that weapon too.
The world watched, including Ken Austin, the man who gifted the world of alcoholic beverages with Tequila Avión, lovingly developed with the rapper Jeezy and quickly flogged to Pernod Ricard for $100 million. It was Austin who saw in McGregor's swagger and fightin' Irish bluster the potential to shift a shedload of uisce beatha to the young and impressionable. An approach was made. Before the world knew what was happening, the Notorious was proffering sláintes from press conferences, from Conan's couch, from Jimmy Fallon's. Only losers pay for advertising. The reviews of McGregor's Proper Twelve Irish Whiskey from the whiskey cognoscenti were not kind. It didn't matter. McGregor could sell snow to Eskimos and, just two years after it was launched, the fighter cashed out. That was that.
McGregor has used MMA to reimagine himself as a 21st-century entrepreneur. So what now? And what next? Well, there is always giving back. McGregor's companions on the Forbes wealth list have prominent charitable and altruistic ventures – the LeBron James Family Foundation, the Roger Federer Foundation, the Leo Messi Foundation. Cristiano Ronaldo auctioned his Golden Boot and other awards to contribute to the millions he has given to charitable donations.
Social conscience
And for all of the bleaker elements of McGregor’s public image, there has been the sense of some kind of social conscience lurking within. When the pandemic broke, it seemed for a few moments that he was ready to don his little trunks and gloves and zap that pesky virus himself.
A small percentage of every bottle of whiskey sold goes to first responders, capped at a million quid. It’s known that he donated $500,000 to a charity in Poirier’s home town in Louisiana, following an agreement between the pair. Various donations to charities and the construction of a small number of houses designated for the homeless in Ireland have been funded by McGregor. It could well be that he has donated privately to other causes also.
If McGregor wanted, he could even set up the first ever financial company offering mortgages to the Irish people of his generation but without the rip-off interest rates
There is no McGregor Trust or charity yet. But that’s not to say there couldn’t be. In recent days, there has been loose conjecture about McGregor using his mega-wealth to buy a stake in Manchester United or Celtic. But wouldn’t that just be... boring? It’s always a problem for sports stars who suddenly find themselves living in Gatsby’s mansion. How do you spend it all?
Ireland is a small country and McGregor has literally worn its flag during his metamorphosis. He is a big fish here. He has the energy and profile and the street savvy to do anything that he wants. It’s an incredible position of privilege.
If McGregor wanted, he could even set up the first ever financial company offering mortgages to the Irish people of his generation but without the rip-off interest rates. Imagine that!
The hordes who followed him out to Vegas during his unstoppable rise are surely among the same citizens caught in the national crisis right now. Yes, yes, Notorious Mortgages is a mad idea. But not quite as mad as a young plumber from Crumlin taking up a fringe combat sport and using it to become the money king of the sporting world in just 10 years. Conor McGregor has all the money now. Sky’s the limit, as the original Notorious proclaimed.
So, what about the legacy?
