Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a well-known martial art and one of the most effective fighting styles. Since its popularization, especially after UFC, Jiu Jitsu became a much bigger sport with thousands of practitioners, gyms, and federated competitions all around the world. Nowadays, more than a physical activity that teaches self-defense, Jiu Jitsu can be a professional career. But how much do Jiu Jitsu fighters make?
As a general rule, a high-level Jiu Jitsu fighter can make up to $120000 per year, including professional competition purses, prizes, and sponsors. But competing is not the only way to make money with BJJ. The average pay for a Black Belt instructor is about $21 hourly (up to $43716/year).
Training BJJ can be super addictive, it’s easy to fall in love with the sport. When it happens, training a couple of hours a day is not enough. Some people want more. They want to make a living out of Jiu-Jitsu. Combining a professional career with a passion is a dream for a lot of people, but is not something easy to achieve. In that sense, in this article, we’ll show 6 ways to make money with BJJ. For competitors and professional athletes, the way to make money is more obvious, but there are tips for average individuals as well.
6 Ways To Make Money With BJJ
Fights and Competition Prizes
Usually, this is the first way that new Jiu-Jitsu practitioners use to earn money. With the popularization of competitive Jiu-Jitsu, tournaments and federations are giving great cash prizes to the champions. In recent years even competitors who are not yet black belts have the opportunity to receive cash prizes, which helps the sport and athletes (in the past, only black belt competitors had good cash prizes). But for athletes that are at the beginning of their career, despite it’s a pretty straightforward way to make money, it’s not easy. After all, to receive the money, the athlete needs to win the competition (or at least finish in the top 3), and this is not always possible. High-level, highly ranked athletes usually receive a purse, an upfront payment just to fight, regardless of the outcome. In this sense, top athletes always have the advantage in terms of making money. But there are other ways for beginners and average practitioners that want to make a living of BJJ.
Sponsors
Closing partnerships and finding reliable sponsors after becoming a well-known professional athlete is not that hard. Much of the income of top athletes come from business partnerships with big brands. But at the beginning of the career, without a good fighting record or a good presence on social media platforms, getting a sponsor can be very difficult. The company has to see the quality in you to want to sponsor you, so it must always present your strengths when doing this business. Finding companies that want to support new athletes can be challenging, but not impossible. You can go after them or make them find you through social media. Growing your on sources of online traffic is super important not only to find sponsors but also to promote yourself and your products/services. An excellent way to make money from Jiu Jitsu.
Private Classes
This is a controversial subject, but it needs to be addressed. To be able to teach Jiu Jitsu, the professor needs to have a good experience in the sport. Sometimes the guy can even be a very tough blue belt, but that doesn’t mean anything and doesn’t enable him to be ahead teaching classes. The opposite may also be true. A blue belt can often be a better teacher than a veteran black belt. It happens because, in addition to Jiu-Jitsu skills, being a good teacher depends on other factors. Patience, good teaching, etc. Still, teaching martial art is a huge responsibility, and great care must be taken in allowing practitioners with little experience to teach. The ideal is for only black belts to be the instructors in BJJ schools. However, from the blue belt onwards it’s perfectly possible to act as an assistant teacher and even give some private lessons (authorized and supervised by a more experienced athlete). This way, from the blue belt onwards, it’s already possible to earn money by teaching Jiu Jitsu.
Opening A Gym
Opening a Jiu Jitsu school is another great way to make money with BJJ. This is one of the best ways for beginners, as you don’t need to be a Black Belt to start your business. However, to be able to attract students to the academy, the ideal is finding at least a Brown Belt with a good competition record and BJJ lineage verification. This way you know that the head instructor in your academy really knows Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and will be able to teach and take care of the students that you receive in the school. With a good structure and a BJJ head instructor, you’ll be able to make a lot of money. The average cost of a BJJ school per month in the US is about $175. That means that a school with 50 students can make up to $8750 per month. That’s an excellent income.
Online Instructionals
Selling online courses and seminars is one of the best ways to make money, not only with BJJ but with pretty every niche. Until a couple of years ago was not common to find good Jiu-Jitsu instructionals online, but it changed. There are thousands of great options online, for all levels of athletes. Learning at home is not the same as learning in a BJJ academy, but it’s a good way to improve your technical game. If you are an experienced BJJ athlete with an Instagram or Facebook profile, you already have all that you need to start recording and selling a Jiu Jitsu course online. Start recording or streaming some techniques and movements for free. After you see interest from a part of your followers, you can offer them a premium/complete course for a fixed price. Imagine how much money you can make with a $100 course that you record only once and can sell hundreds of times? That’s an exceptional way of making money as a Jiu Jitsu fighter.
BJJ Brand (Appareal, T-Shirts, Etc)
Starting a BJJ brand is one of the most satisfying ways to make a living off Jiu Jitsu. BJJ is part of the lifestyle of its practitioners, so if you manage to create products that capture the essence of martial art you’ll probably be able to sell them easily to this specific niche. T-shirts, gis, rash guards, hats, etc. There are a lot of products that you can sell that are related to the BJJ lifestyle. You don’t even need to have the products in stock anymore. Today is already possible to create, personalize and sell t-shirt and other custom goods without ever having them in your hands. It’s a business model called dropshipping, where you can sell products in your e-commerce directly from the manufacturer to the end client, without the need of doing the logistics by yourself. It’s a pretty good option to make money with Jiu Jitsu.
How Much Do Professional Athletes Can Make?
As a general rule, a professional BJJ athlete can make between $26000 and $120000 (or more) combining sponsors, competition prizes and purses, private classes, seminars, and online sales. Famous athletes and gym owners can make twice or even three times that.
| Pro BJJ Athletes Income Sources | Underperform | Expected | Overperform |
| Sponsors | $500 / Monthly | $1500 / Monthly | $2000+ / Monthly |
| Prizes & Purses | $2000 / Year | $10000 / Year | $30000 / Year |
| Private Classes | $500 / Monthly | $1000 / Monthly | $1500+ / Monthly |
| Seminars | $500 / Montlhy | $1500 / Monthly | $2000+ / Per Seminar |
| Online Courses / Instructionals Sales | $500 / Monthly | $1000 / Monthly | $2000+ / Monthly |
- Sponsors: a high-level Black Belt should not expect less than $500 in sponsorships every month. The usual income in this category is around $1500. But keep in mind that sponsorship money is usually used for the athlete’s preparation, with things like good nutrition, supplements, and physiotherapy.
- Prizes and purses: to make a good income with competitions, the goal is finishing at least one high-level tournament between the top 3 athletes of your category. It’ll give you at the very least $2000/year.
- Private classes: famous athletes can charge up to $5000 for a single BJJ class. Of course this kind of pay rate is reserved for true legends, but it does not mean you can’t charge a fair price for your time to teach Jiu Jitsu. A professional Black Belt can make at the very least $500 per month with two students ($250 each for eight 1 hour BJJ sessions in a month). That’s an excellent way to improve teaching skills and make extra money.
- Seminars: a great way to meet new people, teach BJJ and make extra dollars. Famous athletes can make up to $20000 in a single seminar. Of course, this is not for everyone. But a good Black Belt with a decent competition record should be able to make at least $2000 teaching a seminar in a weekend.
- Online Courses / Instructionals: the holy grail of making money with BJJ. Famous athletes are literally making millions by selling instructional on the internet. You may not be able to make a million yourself, but you surely can make about $500 monthly. For example: you can sell a $50 course to 10 people every month. If you working well on your social media, that should be easy to do.
How Much An Average BJJ Black Belt Can Make?
The average annual pay for a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Instructor in the United States is $43,716 a year. This is the equivalent of $841/week or $3,643/month. You don’t need to be a professional competitor to teach BJJ, but a competition record helps a lot if your goal is to teach in a school that belongs to someone else. Also, Black Belts makes more money and have more chances to find a good job, as long as they have a good BJJ lineage verification.
An average BJJ Black Belt can make about $21 per hour ($43716/year) teaching Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in the United States. However, 28% of the BJJ instructors make less than $40000 a year. Only 7% of the Jiu Jitsu instructors make more than $60000 per year in the US.
Related Questions
How Do You Get Paid In Jiu-Jitsu? Jiu-Jitsu fighters usually get paid by sponsors and competition prizes. However, most of the income of a professional athlete these days comes from online BJJ courses sales, owning a gym, being paid to give seminars, and private classes.
How Much Do BJJ Black Belts Make? On average, a BJJ Black Belt can make about $21 per hour ($43716/year) teaching Jiu Jitsu in the United States. Professional competitors can make more money from competition prizes and sponsorships. 28% of the BJJ instructors make less than $40000 a year.
