GSP’s sage advice to UFC’s elite
Georges St-Pierre: “One thing I can advise the professional athlete in mixed martial arts, you have to take it in a way that, you need to see your career as a business.”
Georges St-Pierre was one of the sports most prolific athlete and high profile athletes. It was also one of it’s highest grossing athletes, but that didn’t stop him from making mistakes through his career in business. St-Pierre recently spoke to MMAFighting and offered advice for his peers on how to handle their careers:
“One thing I can advise the professional athlete in mixed martial arts, you have to take it in a way that, you need to see your career as a business,” St-Pierre said. “I’m not qualified, I’m not competent for business because I’m a martial artist. I am competent to fight. So, when it is time to negotiate deals, or deal with my taxes or lawyer, I’m hiring the best people, the people I could find most competent for the job.”
It’s not as if St-Pierre didn’t face the same stumbling blocks many other fighters encountered on his way up. He made multiple management changes over the years and been through legal issues before landing with Hollywood-bigwig Creative Artists Agency.
“I don’t try to do this stuff myself or to pick one of my friends. A lot of fighters, they got caught up in those kind of things and I did myself as well, I had a lot of problems, I got different law disputes and stuff like that, I lost a lot of money. I made a lot of money, but I could have made way more. I’m lucky because it happened in the beginning of my career, and I learned from those mistakes.”