The UFC and Sponsorship Fees

We all now know that under the direction of Dana White, Joe Silva dropped the hammer on the sponsors, informing them that they’d have to pay a $100,000 fee in order to sponsor UFC fighters.

We also all know that this damages the lower tier sponsors and up and coming fighters much more severely than it does the big dogs. So many sponsors can’t pay the fee and this cuts a lot of sponsorship money from a number of fighters, money that they depend on since they are not getting paid much to fight on the under card.

Now I’m not chastising Zuffa for making this decision. I think $100,000 might be a tad steep, but it makes sense in that they are going after only the top-tier sponsors. It is tough for the others, and some might say unfair, but it’s also business.

The problem I, and many others, have is that this destroys a source of income for so many fighters. Often they get paid $7,000 to show and $7,000 to win, and the rest of their money comes from piecing together a handful of sponsors that can shell out a thousand bucks here or two thousand there. Now all the sudden this option is kaput!

The simple fix is this, with the increased revenue thanks to the big time sponsors paying the fee, the UFC needs to up the pay scale for the under card guys. This makes it where they don’t have to hustle to earn a few extra dollars and it also makes the promotion look as if this was their intention all along, whether it was or not.

How about making the minimum for any fighter $20,000! Ten fighters on a typical under card makes for $200,000, and that expense is resolved by the $100,000 sponsorship fee doled out for the main event guys.
If the UFC opts to take this route it would salvage a situation that adds grease to the fire for those who claim the promotion is akin to the evil empire.