Dana White Addresses Sponsor Tax
July 12, 2009
Dana White spoke with a group of reporters after the formal UFC press conference and took the opportunity to “answer” questions about the sponsor tax that was recently instituted by the UFC. MMA Weekly has a written piece on the presser as well as video of the session :
White met the criticism head on, disputing the notion his company was trying to cut out competing interests.
“Since day one, we have tried to figure out how to make fighters more money, how to build the sport at the same time, and grow everything for everybody,” he said. “And everything that I come up with is not gonna be the best… not everybody is gonna go, ‘Oh, that’s a great idea, I love it. This is gonna work for everybody.’”
For certain, this sponsor tax doesn’t look like it is “gonna be the best” for the fighters. I don’t think the concept of the sponsor tax is for it to work for everybody, as long as it works for the UFC.
For the first time White details the parameters of the sponsor tax, where he indicates that there isn’t a flat $100,000 fee, that companies are sat down with on an individual basis and a percentage is figured based on how big or small. After White details the terms of the sponsor tax, Dave Meltzer asks if this policy is impacting the lower tier fighters adversely. Dana doesn’t answer the question, he launches into how he is looking for ways to make money for fighters and how his merchandise deal will save MMA fighters from a Leon Spinks fate. White at no time indicates how this policy of charging sponsors access to the Octagon is in any way benefiting the actual fighters themselves or goes toward lining the fighter’s pockets and not the UFC’s. When asked if the policy favors large sponsors over small, Dana White then goes on an epic “the world is in economic disaster spiel”, that again does not address the question in any substantive way. He states that there isn’t a lot of sponsor money out there right now, but his policy of taxing fighter’s sponsors ensures that of the money that is out there, the UFC will be getting a piece of it. With a paucity of sponsor dollars like White states, there are going to even fewer dollars to go towards the UFC’s sponsor taxes over and above what the fighter is being paid.
“We are the most lenient sports organization on planet (expletive) earth. When was the last time you saw guys wearing whatever they want in the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NBA, World Cup Soccer? Do guys wear whatever they want when they walk in? No they don’t.”
“What we did is actually a good thing. The bottom line is, we could always say who can sponsor and who can’t. They send in their list of sponsors and we say, ‘nope, you can’t have them, you can’t have them, you can’t have them,’ either because of pay-per-view, Spike TV, or because they conflict with our sponsors. Always been the case.”
White then says that hey we allow guys to wear sponsors, choosing to ignore his own words in the past that he is able to keep fighter pay artificially low due to allowing his fighters to receive sponsors. There is a means to the ends when it comes to this “generosity” in allowing sponsors. What they have done with this sponsor tax is to monetize the entire process to their benefit and at the detriment of the fighter.
To characterize basically not answering the two questions in the video piece on the sponsor tax as facing the issue head on isn’t necessarily true. White is giving answers, not so much to the questions he is being asked, but answers nonetheless.
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