Sponsors & Fighters

Fighters give up alot to be a fighter. Even at the ammy level these people sacrifice alot to do what they love. I know people who drive about an hour (or more) both ways several times a week just to train & this is a pain in the wallet with gas prices these days. At the local/regional level fighters need to have a "day job" to help pay the bills, support their families & make ends meet. Chasing the dream puts this job or jobs at risk & getting hurt can mean not only missing a fight, but missing out on work & not getting to pay some bills.

So you have to think about things like paying rent/mortgage and utilities plus putting food on the table with the cost of gas & gym membership(s) when you think of the costs of what training to fight means to the fighter... but that's not all.

You need to factor in things like the costs of getting supplements & other nutritional needs, the costs of equipment & other accessories (like shorts, athletic support/cup, gloves, wraps, tape, etc) in with things like the costs of travelling to fight (gas to/from, hotel. food, etc) or compete in submissions/grappling competitions and the cost of compensating the people who support your efforts like cornermen & coaches/instructors... and you can see how this ends up being quite a large number - and that is just for ONE FIGHT! Imagine having to repeat this process over & over to cover the total for an entire year!

I've dealt with sponsors a little. I won't say it was/is on the level of someone fighting in the UFC... but I think I have learned enough to understand the basics of how companies deal with fighters... and I also see how some companies abuse this opportunity to their advantage & not really helping the fighter they "sponsor".

I can understand why a company might not want to offer cash as part of a sponsorship for an amateur fighter, since they aren't a proven commodity & rarely get on TV to offer a company sponsoring them much exposure beyond social media updates... but for a company to NOT have cash be part of the sponsorship package of a professional fighter is a company who is NOT really sponsoring a fighter, but one who is using a fighter to get their name out without giving a fair amount back.

I'm not going to say names... companies who act wrongly know who they are & it doesn't take much for people to see who is doing it right & who isn't - regardless of what the companies say on their websites & in their social media updates/releases.

Recently I was asked what I thought a fair amount would be if a company wanted to be an exclusive sponsor of a known fighter (meaning they are or have been fighting at the highest levels of MMA in the UFC or other promotions of equal or similar rating of importance) who would be fighting on a televised event for a national promotion.

Again, I won't say who the fighter is, or the company that was trying to sponsor them... but just talking in general terms of a fighter LIKE THAT and a company LIKE THAT - I said I would think that the sponsorship amount SHOULD be in the neighborhood of $20,000 - $25,000 when I factored in all of the things I mentioned above... BUT that I could understand a company trying to get a steal of a deal by offering somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000 - $15,000.

Take into consideration this would be the only company sponsoring this fighter, because they wanted to have exclusive rights to the fighter. I came to what i thought would be a reasonable number considering it would be for about 6 weeks of this fighter's career & covering the costs he/she might have to cover over that time to properly prepare for their opponent so they could win - which should be the goal of the sponsoring company so the public associates them with the winner of the fight... or so you would think.

But this company wasn't offering anything close to that, even the lowest figure I mentioned as an estimate... I was totally shocked to hear that it was a mid-level THREE DIGIT number they were offering to pay to be the only name associated with a known fighter for a televised fight, not even a FOUR DIGIT figure, and I was thinking how does the person who offered that from this company sleep at night?

I see companies plastering their name all over the place, getting associated with entire events on the local/regional level... and having a huge list of fighters they sponsor... but if all they are doing is sending a few shirts now & then or kicking in a few bucks once in awhile... how is that really sponsoring a fighter who is putting out money from their own pocket just to be able to fight? How is that fair considering what the sponsoring company gets in return?

How is that supporting the industry?

In my opinion, the answer to all of those questions is "IT'S NOT!"

We've seen recent news stories where fighters in national promotions fighting in televised events weren't paid by their sponsors for agreements they had already made with the fighters... it's clear to me that some companies feel they can just screw people over 7 use them to get their company name into the public eye & feel that it's ok to do whatever - rather than being fair & square with the people they choose to sponsor & giving them a fair compensation in exchange for the fighter getting the company's name/product out to their fanbase & viewers of the fight/event/sport.

Not every sponsor is like this... I have seen some go the extra mile to help out their fighters when needed. But more than enough take the easy way out & shortchange their fighters & that is just WRONG in my opinion!

These people bust their asses to live the dream... it's not right for someone to take advantage of fighters in need and abusing the system in place just so they can make a buck.

Fighters deserve better from sponsors who benefit from them putting blood, sweat & tears into everything they do as they try to live their dream of being a professional MMA fighter.

Hopefully the companies not treating their fighters right will act more like the ones who are doing right by their fighters. I don't expect them to all of a sudden just change their ways & get less when they are getting more... but I can hope they see that there is a right way to do things & that by doing what the companies who go the extra mile to support/sponsor their fighters do they will end up making more in the big picture.

The negative publicity from being shown as a company who doesn't pay their fighters when an agreement is in place... or shortchanging their fighters by only kicking in a few shirts or so would be worse than not making as huge of a profit by screwing over the fighter by not fairly compensating them throughout the course of the sponsorship.