UFC Bans More Apparel Companies
June 25, 2009
In a further move to bring fighter sponsorships under tighter control by Zuffa, the UFC announced new guidelines for apparel sponsorships starting with UFC 100. Sam Caplan with 5oz of Pain breaks the story:
FiveOuncesOfPain.com was contacted by a manager on Wednesday night who spoke on the condition of anonymity and stated that he recently received an e-mail indicating that additional clothing sponsors have been added to the UFC’s list of banned companies.
Five Ounces of Pain was able to obtain an e-mail distributed by the UFC’s legal department that now lists Dethrone, One More Round, and Rolling Stone as a list of sponsors that will not be approved for UFC 100 on July 11. Unacceptable sponsors for UFC 100 also online Poker sponsors Full Tilt Poker, Ultimate Bet, and Party Poker.
Clothing sponsors that are approved for UFC 100 include Cage Fighter, MMA Authentic, Familia Gladitoria and MMA Elite. The source added that several clothing sponsors have indicated that they were contacted recently by the UFC and informed that in order to have the ability to sponsor a UFC fighter during a UFC-promoted event that they would have to pay a $100,000 fee to the UFC for the right to sponsor a fighter.
FiveOuncesOfPain.com contacted several other managers and agents who represent UFC fighters and they reaffirmed every detail brought forth by the original source.
I think the goals here are two fold. If they generate additional income that will be all fine and well. While these payoffs are tantamount to legal kickbacks, that doesn’t make them anymore ethical. I think the real purpose, though, is to drive traffic and business to the folks that they currently have relationships with, like Tapout, and others that I have spoken on here in the past. The UFC has financial interests in seeing these companies have less competition in the cage. While the UFC has also targeted a few non-apparel companies with these “sponsor taxes”, the apparel brands are targets because they are endmic to MMA, ie they are beholden to the UFC demographic for their success. They are basically dead in the water without the MMA market, and the UFC especially, as a vehicle to dispaly their product. The UFC want to winnow out the field and see the companies they have vested interests in get bigger. Which fine and well for the UFC and the apparel companies but doesn’t help fighters who are deprived of sponsors and in the long run have less competition for their sponsorship slots, which will mean less dollars.
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