How Jiu-Jitsu Athletes Make Money

Lessons from Gordon Ryan, the internet, and more.

Being a professional Jiu-Jitsu athlete is very serious business.

I chose a job I love so I could work basically every day of my life — on my favorite things.

This is the reality for many people in Jiu-Jitsu. Jiu-Jitsu is addicting and loads of fun, but it’s also a very hard sport to make a living in.

It’s like crack (I think). It destroys your body, takes your money, and it’s really hard to stop.

Remember all those guys who got famous for living in a laundromat? Yeah, they’re less unique than you might think. Most grapplers are dirt broke and they aren’t doing much to change that.

Up until a few years ago, the IBJJF didn’t even pay people for winning world championships at the black belt level. This (among other things) made me insanely anxious about trying to do Jiu-Jitsu full-time.

As a 22-year-old who graduated college during a pandemic and only wanted to do Jiu-Jitsu, it felt like I had no options except getting a “real job” and training in my spare time.

I mean, how the hell was someone like me, a random brown belt (at the time) from Chicago, supposed to make enough money to feed and clothe myself and send myself to competitions (since I had to pay my own way there, of course) if I wasn’t famous, and the only major title I had to my name was at freaking purple belt?

This problem used to scare the shit out of me, but now I feel I’ve solved it, at least for myself for the time being. Now, after almost 8 years in the Jiu-Jitsu world, I make enough money from Jiu-Jitsu-related projects (and writing projects) to keep living this crazy life.

But it’s not that simple. Making Jiu-Jitsu your job is not just doing Jiu-Jitsu or even just teaching Jiu-Jitsu.

Making money through jiu-Jitsu requires you to be resourceful, a bit self-promoting (something I hate), and, perhaps most confusing of all, to give away a lot of your knowledge for free.

In this article, I’m going to give you a mega-list of potential ideas and side hustles that you can use to make money off of your grappling skills. You can start a lot of them today.

Before we begin, if you’d like some context, check out this Twitter thread I wrote yesterday that inspired this article.

chris wojcik @chrismwojcik

How Jiu-Jitsu athletes make money: 🧵