Dana White SHOCKER: UFC Breaking News
By Barnaby “Mattress” Kellaway
In December of last year the UFC signed a six year $70m outfitting deal with Reebok, the most valuable non-broadcast deal the company has ever signed. At the time, the UFC hierarchy said it was designed not for the benefit of the company but for the benefit of the athletes, claiming that “the vast majority of the revenue” from the contract would be paid directly to the fighters. Now, two months before the outfitting policy goes in to effect, the UFC has announced the pay scale. At first glance it doesn’t look good.
It will operate on a tiered system based on how many bouts an athlete has had whilst fighting under the Zuffa banner. Fighters with between one and five fights will make $2,500 per fight, six to ten makes $5,000, eleven to fifteen earns $10,000, sixteen to twenty draws $15,000 and twenty one fights or more collects $20,000. The parameters for title challengers and champions are separate with challengers making $30,000 per fight and champions pulling in $40,000.
The purpose of the policy has always been an attempt to push the UFC and MMA closer to mainstream sports, a point that Dana White made again in a conference call after the details were announced. He said, “It’s no different than any other sport. In other sports, lots of guys are sponsored by different brands outside of the NFL, outside of the NBA, it’s no different from that. The UFC is just catching up now. And there’s going to be clothing companies and other sponsors. If your business is MMA you’re going to want some of the best guys and some of the most popular guys in the sport to represent your brand and shoot commercials and billboards and wear your stuff.”
As White alluded to with his statement, it’s not as bad as it looks on paper because fighters will still be able to maintain their own apparel and non-apparel sponsors: they just won’t be able to represent them when participating in official UFC events like press conferences or weigh-ins. In addition to this, every fighter’s kit will be available for purchase online, from which the athletes will earn 20-30% of gross sales.
Despite the best efforts of Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta to sell the scheme, it did not stop numerous fighters taking to Twitter to voice their concerns. Heavyweight Brendan Schaub, who according the scale is due to make $10,000 in his next fight tweeted: “I’ve made six figures in sponsorship in each of my last six fights.” This means that, if true, “Big Brown” will lose out, at the very least, on a staggering $90,000. Number eight ranked middleweight, Tim Kennedy, seems hugely displeased by the deal: “Dear @ufc, am I to understand that for my exclusive apparel sponsorship I’ll make $2,500? I’ll pass, thanks for the generous offer #reebok.” The feeling of dissatisfaction was expressed once more by Ramsey Nijem: “I made more money (in) my 2nd fight in the UFC on Facebook prelims. Not complaining, just stating facts.” When you consider that he has had nine fights in the UFC it’s understandable why he and so many others are unhappy with the changes.
The voluble displeasure doesn’t surprise UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta, “I’m sure there will be those that aren’t excited about the policy, but I can tell you that the vast majority of athletes that we’ve spoken to are excited about the opportunity.” He continued: “Certainly we knew going into this thing that we’re not going to make everybody happy, that’s an impossibility. What we tried to do was get as much intelligence as we possibly could by talking to managers and fighters’ managers over about an 18-month period and literally creating an entire database of where we felt the market was for fighters who were at different tiers, and we felt like we did a pretty good job of replicating the compensation that they were getting.”
If the comments made by Nijem and Schaub are true, then it is in fact the case that, in some instances, the UFC has done a remarkably poor job of replicating the compensation they were getting.
He did however go on to make a valid point about a problem, that has always plagued fighters, which will cease to exist after the plan comes into effect: “When you look at it from a risk-return standpoint, these are guaranteed payments. They’re not going to have to run down sponsors, maybe not get paid. This money will be paid ten days after they have effectively competed in the event and adhered to the athlete outfitting policy.”
It is still too early to analyze in depth the good and bad aspects of the deal and in time we will know more. But the early indications are that the beneficiaries of the Reebok uniform policy are in the minority.
