3.) Champions and top-ranked fighters are suddenly in uncertain territory:
Although elite UFC champions and the top-ranked fighters who sit directly below them on the rankings will understandably garner the lion’s share of sponsorship dollars in the deal, the exact nature of how the uniform policy will or will not affect top fighters’ earning potential is still up in the air.
It’s not clear, or at least it hasn’t been revealed, if champions or highly marketable fighters will be able to sign their own royalty deals to earn more on the back end like they do from pay-per-view (PPV) cards, but it wouldn’t be a surprise to hear that or something like it in the near future.
The top fighters’ apparel will certainly sell more than most other fighters giving them a much bigger piece of the sponsorship pie in that area. Brand name fighters are also in the enviable position of not having to worry about other sponsorship money coming in unlike lower-level UFC talent.
But they could and probably will lose several blue chip sponsors who are unwilling to play ball with the UFC’s new uniform policy. Others may in fact gain huge new deals because of the plan’s implementation.
We just don’t know yet, so it’ll be interesting to see how top-level fighters end up in this whole ordeal. They’re obviously not going to go starving, and some, like Ronda Rousey, Johny Hendricks, and Anthony Pettis, should see a huge boost in overall popularity as they become faces of Reebok’s new and aggressive expansion into MMA.
