News broke this week with details about the UFC's new sponsorship program with Reebok. Specifically, payment tiers for fighters made their way onto social media platforms and news sites. The feedback was mixed, but largely negative as many fighters objected either to losing the right to find their own sponsors or the downgrade they faced in expected pay.
The question isn't simply how this will affect the UFC and the fighters who compete there, but the sponsorship market generally. In addition, how will this affect the Viacom-backed Bellator, a much smaller organization, but one that doesn't use a sponsorship tax or other heavy-handed sponsor screens?
Scott Coker sat down with MMA Junkie to discuss. Good to see someone asked him about it. Hopefully the MMA media will keep this issue at the forefront.
What I don't understand is why did they have to do it? They were making money from the sponsor tax. Sponsors were helping to offset some of the complaints of low fighter pay. What is so necessary about it?
I think that's something you'll have to ask them. I can only speculate. Their corporate strategy really is something you'll have to talk to them about. They're definitely heading into a different direction than the sport's been going the last 25 years. Let's see if it's something that's going to be there for the term of the contract or for many years from now.
I can tell you I feel with our fighters, this is an individual sport. The fighters in our league are going to have the ability to get their own sponsors as long as there's no conflict with our corporate sponsors that support Bellator.
This is why I really respect Scott Coker, and believe the majority of fighters do as well. He seems to really "get it"...that fighters must have the ability to brand themselves, with the support & backing from the promotion. It's not an "we owe them - it's us vs. them" mentality.
Does Bellator now employ, even in an administrative way, any sort of sponsor screen?
That's the only limitation. We don't have any sponsorship tax on our athletes. As long as they don't conflict with our main sponsors - like Miller, like Dave & Buster's, Monster Energy Drink, there's a couple others - then everything else is fine. If they can go negotiate a deal that pays them a million dollars a year, that's up to them.
They're independent contractors. They have their own ability to go make those deals.
Because of this, I think we're going to see more & more fighters fight out their contracts with Zuffa, as quickly as possible, and make a jump to Bellator. The base pay may not be as much as the UFC can offer for everyone, but the ability to brand themselves and negotiate deals w/ sponsors will be a key factor in their decision making.
What do you think the UFC's program is going to do to the sponsorship market in MMA, generally?
I think there's been some situations that have been explained to me where fighters were making $50-60,000 a fight from all their sponsors [are] now making $10,000 or $15,000 or $20,000. You'd have to talk to UFC to see how they're going to handle that situation, but I'm sure they're going to do something. The fighters are not going to be happy if it's taking out $150-$200,000 a year in sponsorships from their pocket.
I think they're going to have a situation on their hands that they're going to have to deal with.
I will tell you this, the phone's been ringing. I just tell people, "Listen. We're not going to engage in any kind of dialogue with you on any level unless you're a free agent. When you're free, give me a call."
Zuffa's definitely got a situation on their hands. The next 6-12 months is going to be such an interesting sidebar to watch play out...especially with Coker waiting in the wings to scoop up free agents, and the lawsuit looming. The UFC is going to have to be really careful about how they play their hand here.
How many fighters do you have on the roster at the moment?
I believe it's like 150.
So how much more could you accommodate now if you wanted to?
Well, this year, the answer to that is probably 140 (laughs), but we're going to have an announcement, I'd say, in a couple of months. We're going to expand our schedule next year and do some really fun stuff and cool stuff. We're excited about 2016 and beyond.
Interesting. I wonder what Coker has in store? With the tournament format gone now, and an exclusive deal with Spike TV, how can they expand their schedule? This one has me stumped a bit...
Monitoring social media, there's a lot of talk about whether now is the time for a fighter's union. What is your view on the potentiality of something like that happening?
This is all speculation, right? We can only talk about hypotheticals, but all I can say is this. When I was in business with the Silicon Valley Sports & Entertainment Group and half the company was owned by the group that owns the San Jose Sharks, we kind of set up our pay structure based upon like a hockey union would do. We paid minimum 68 percent of our gross income to our athletes pay structure. If there was a union, I don't think that would take us off guard by any means because when we structured Strikeforce, we structured based around kind of like if there was a union.
My guys felt very strongly that this is something we should do. If it became real today, we would act accordingly and move forward.
I have no idea what % of gross income Bellator pays their fighters now, or plans to pay them when Coker has Bellator operating efficiently and profitable...but what do you think the % of gross income (revenue) Zuffa is paying their fighters is? Greater, or less than 68%?
Bellator's still a work in progress with your vision. Is that arrangement something you want to set Bellator to do as well?
We can very easily do that. It'd be a similar adjustment and we'd move forward. I just don't know if a union in an individual sport like MMA will really come to fruition at some point or not. There's a lot of hurdles there because this is an individual sport and not a team sport.
There are certainly hurdles, and I think we're going to see how many can be cleared over the next 12-18 months. If a Fighters ASSOCIATION (not union), does come to fruition...does it impact Bellator at all? Or would it be only fighters under Zuffa contracts that join together?
LINK to full article:
Scott Coker on UFC-Reebok sponsorship program: Bellator's 'phone's been ringing' - MMA Fighting
, though, make no mistake about it, i could run it, just may not actually attract any viewers.
