At the minute a lot of the details surrounding the UFC's deal with Reebok are unclear but this is no surprise as the deal does not begin until July next year. That's over half a year away and will give both sides enough time to clarify exactly how the fighters will benefit from this, after all Dana White announced today that the UFC "won't make a dime" from this deal and it was done to purely benefit the fighters.
My take on the key points of the deal:
Participation of the new uniform policy is mandatory for all fighters under contract in the UFC.Fighters will have the ability to personalise what they wear to the Octagon and in doing so will receive royalty payments, expected to be 20% for any sales on their personalised kit. This I imagine will be from the sales of personalised walk in t shirts, hoodies etc. However, Lorenzo Fertitta stated that this will go in to perpetuity meaning that even after fighters retire they can still receive royalties from the sale of their personalised kit.
Every fighter will receive a package of gear at the beginning of Fight Week and this will then be all they can wear during the week that includes media days, open workouts, weigh ins and on the night of the fight.
Fighters will earn a tiered sponsorship income dependant on their ranking the day of weighing in for a fight. As is to be expected, the champions in each weight class will take home the most money. The remaining fighters will then be split in to four categories with the value they receive reducing the lower down the rankings they are. Fighters ranked 1-5 will pick up less than the champ but more than the fighters below them in the rankings. The other groupings are Ranks 6-10 and 11-15 with all other fighter who are unranked still receiving some sponsorship money but not as much as the above bandings.
Fighters can still have other sponsors but they will no longer be able to promote those brands in any way on clothing or banners during fight week or on the night of the fight. This will likely see an end to Fight Banners when fighters are introduced at weigh ins. For example, Conor McGregor can still be sponsored by Dethrone and promote them how he wants in his camp however, you will not see him wearing any Dethrone clothing at any point during fight week.
On Fight Nights the Reebok clothing deal also means that all cornermen will be expected to abide by the same rules as the fighters and will only be able to wear Reebok clothes to the Octagon.
Due to the fact the the rankings will directly affect how much a fighter gets paid now Dana White will be looking to change the current process to make sure that a smaller group of people are involved in the rankings. Only wanting legitimate guys that he knows are "very credible and ethical" to produce the rankings and this will be worked on in the coming months.
What are your thoughts on the deal, do you think it will benefit just the topped or fighters or will the lower ranked fighters benefit from this too? Personally I need to know more information before making up my mind however, if what Dana White is saying is true then I believe it will generate more money for most of the fighters in the UFC and that for me is a good thing.
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