Sponsor Conflict at UFC 91? (Update)
November 17, 2008
One of the interesting things from the UFC 91 main event was seeing Randy Couture wear signage from Full Tilt Poker on his trunks during the fight. Couture recently signed a sponsorship deal with the online poker company but it didn’t seem that Couture would be able to wear the company’s signage into the Octagon, as it seemingly violates the Sponsor Agreement that is issued before each card. The pertinent passage:
ABSOLUTELY NO pornography, tobacco, profanity, gambling/gaming, hard liquor, or other MMA orgs allowed as sponsors. Affliction and Extreme Couture products will not be permitted either.
Perhaps the UFC gives the same winking nod to the “educational purposes” of the site that Full Tilt purports itself to be. Maybe some of you online poker players can give me a little more info Full Tilt, as to the ability to play cash games there?
Update: Thanks to the many readers including Phil Caputo, James Bamburg, Chris Kanewske, and George Robbins for giving me a little more insight into this topic. The best explanation of the topic was this:
Most of the major gambling websites operate two separate websites with almost identical names. In this case, you would have fulltiltpoker.com and fulltiltpoker.net. Both sites are identical in appearance but one allows for monetary gaming and the other does not. They always advertise their “free play” sites on television, so they can call it a “educational site” and skirt whatever prohibitions a station or organization might have against advertising “gambling” sites.
So it seems like this squeaks in through a technicality, but one that would probably only have enough wiggle room for Couture. I don’t think we will be seeing a host of fighters all of a sudden sporting new sponsorships with Full Tilt.
BTW, if you hear a faint sound…..it is coming from the Pacific Northwest… that is Matt Lindland cursing the gods….
