It has recently been reported that more companies have been banned from placing a sponsor on the clothing that a UFC fighter and his entourage wear, with the reports suggesting that additional companies, such as Rolling Stone, One More Round and Dethrone, have been added to an ever increasing list of companies that are banned from UFC events. Due to this, fighters under the UFC will have an ever increasing difficulty in obtaining clothing apparel sponsorships for upcoming fight cards.

Although there is some good news for certain fighters for the upcoming UFC 100 card, because clothing sponsors that have been approved for the event includes, MMA Authentic, MMA Elite and Cage Fighter. You may be wondering why certain sponsorships have been ditched, whilst others are still in the bright lights of the UFC. Well according to the reports, companies that wanted to sponsor a UFC fighter would have to pay a total of $100,000 for each fighter they sponsored to the UFC itself. This means that on top of having to pay the fighter to wear the company logo, they would also have to pay the UFC for the logo to be screened to the audience at home watching. This could then explain why companies were reluctant to abide by the UFC’s newly implemented rules, because they may feel that it is not feasible to gain a profit from the sponsorship with the added costs.

However, the UFC is within its rights to place a fee for a sponsor to pay, after all, it is them that are broadcasting the sponsors and they may feel unjustified in broadcasting a sponsor’s logo without receiving anything in return. Although this could fend off potential sponsors, it could also generate a decent profit from a different avenue for the UFC, and because they are a business, making a profit is the first aim they should be striving to achieve, because they do not want to be facing the problems of recently defunct MMA organizations, for example Pride. 

The UFC are well within their rights to make a sponsor pay a fee, but are the implications for the fighters worth it? The majority of UFC fighters earn a reasonable amount of money per fight, but due to the intense training they do and the risks they take, they could be seen as being under-paid, especially when looking at the equivalent counterparts of boxing earning drastically more money. Due to this, a fighter would get sponsors from companies to gain better earnings for himself, yet this fee the UFC are making companies pay may affect a fighter’s ability to command a similar or greater fee to what they were previously earning from sponsorship companies, while some lesser established fighters may end up with no sponsorship at all.

Because of this, present UFC fighters may make a change to a rival MMA company like Affliction who, in most cases, try and provide a better pay for a fighter and if big stars under the UFC banner were to leave, then UFC’s stranglehold on top of the MMA tree may begin to loosen.