Rampage sponsored by Reebok; UFC won't allow him to wear their products

[SinisterSpider]

if Rampage really wants to leave the UFC

he should just walk out with the reebok logo...what are they going to do?

fire him before the fight?

 

[roggg]

Instead of going ape shit, why wouldn't you act intelligently and do the same--that is, sponsor a fighter, thereby also getting 5 minutes of product placement? No one forced you to shell out the big bucks for a 30 second commercial as opposed to just having a fighter wear your merch. And Nike is a poor example, since they already do sponsor some fighters. What justification would they have for being annoyed that Reebok is getting 5 minutes of product placement when they're getting it as well?

You've made my point for me. By allowing fighters to decide which sponsors get air time, with no benefit to either Fox or UFC, you devalue the official channels of sponsorships. Yes, if they allow uncontrolled sponsorships then that's what I should do...abandon the idea of buying a 30 second spot, and get a mid-level guy on the main card to sponsor for less money. That drives demand (and therefor price) of official sponsorhip down.

Why would the UFC or Fox want, or allow this to happen? Would you if you were running things?

 

[Rex Kwon Do]

You've made my point for me. By allowing fighters to decide which sponsors get air time, with no benefit to either Fox or UFC, you devalue the official channels of sponsorships. Yes, if they allow uncontrolled sponsorships then that's what I should do...abandon the idea of buying a 30 second spot, and get a mid-level guy on the main card to sponsor for less money. That drives demand (and therefor price) of official sponsorhip down.

Why would the UFC or Fox want, or allow this to happen? Would you if you were running things?

I'd allow the sponsorship, because in many cases it's a large percentage of a fighter's income. The more comfortably the fighters are living, the less likely it is that they'll come together and start demanding more pay.

Aside from that, sponsors on shorts/shirts/hats are no threat to commercials. I don't see 5 minutes x 3 (or x 5) exposure of a logo that's on the side of a guy's shorts being any real competition to a well-designed 30 second commercial. The logo is constantly moving, being covered, twisted, etc. To say nothing of the fact that there's a good chance the guy wearing your logo will lose the fight. There's an aspect of uncertainty that you don't have with a commercial, which has a predetermined outcome, whose execution was meticulously planned by professionals in a boardroom. There's still way more incentive for a business to do a commercial over a sponsorship (although both are obviously better than just one or the other). There are decades of research about the effectiveness of television commercials; there isn't such research on MMA fighter sponsorship.

 

[MarkyMcFly]

Rampage is definitely not the first to complain about this, no where near it. However, I don't think these guys fully understand whats going on. Who could blame them though, in their mind...and really anyone who would be in that position would kind of look at it the same way "You're taking money out of my pocket because of this, and it's bullshit"

 

[MarkyMcFly]

I'd allow the sponsorship, because in many cases it's a large percentage of a fighter's income. The more comfortably the fighters are living, the less likely it is that they'll come together and start demanding more pay.

Aside from that, sponsors on shorts/shirts/hats are no threat to commercials. I don't see 5 minutes x 3 (or x 5) exposure of a logo that's on the side of a guy's shorts being any real competition to a well-designed 30 second commercial. The logo is constantly moving, being covered, twisted, etc. To say nothing of the fact that there's a good chance the guy wearing your logo will lose the fight. There's an aspect of uncertainty that you don't have with a commercial, which has a predetermined outcome, whose execution was meticulously planned by professionals in a boardroom. There's still way more incentive for a business to do a commercial over a sponsorship (although both are obviously better than just one or the other). There are decades of research about the effectiveness of television commercials; there isn't such research on MMA fighter sponsorship.

As much as it pains me to side with the UFC on this over Rampage...it's basically like this...(just an example since I dont' know the figures)

"Nike pays us as a company, a shit load of money for sponsorship and get to their brand seen. You are an employee for this company. Reebok is not only direct competition but their biggest competition. If we are helping Reebok, we are hurting Nike"

 

[markg171]

I don't understand why people keep saying it's Nike that's the reason he can't wear it. Nike doesn't sponsor the UFC, they sponsor Jones, JDS, Silva, and Akiyama. None of those guys are fighting on this card. I doubt Nike even has any idea this event is happening this weekend. Now if say on the night of the event there's a big giant Nike logo in the middle of the Octagon, the yeah I'd understand why people would say that Reebok's not allowed because Nike doesn't want them there but we've never seen a Nike logo before on the Octagon, so Nike has no affiliation with the UFC.

Now if people were saying DANA doesn't want Reebok in the Octagon as a way to try and get more Nike sponsorships for his fighters by being able to say "Hey look, we didn't let your competitors in, feel free to sponsor some more of our fighters", than that makes more sense. But even that doesn't make much sense because if I were an employee at Nike and I watched the fights and I saw Reebok stamped across Rampage's ass, I'd be like "Huh, I see a Reebok sponsorship but no Nike ones anywhere. We need to sponsor more fighters as we can't have our competitor's being the only big name here. I should bring this to the attention of my boss"

Reebok and the UFC haven't spoken yet. That doesn't mean Dana banned them to suck on Nike's balls and it doesn't mean Nike told them Reebok can't be there, it just means until they speak together and make a deal regarding the sponsorship fee any company has to pay to be shown, Reebok's not being shown. The fights are 10 days, there's plenty of time for Reebok to send them a check. You guys are going to far into it.

And even if it is Dana being evil/Nike trying to monopolize, what are they going to do? It's Rampage's last fight, go ahead and fine/suspend him, he's leaving anyways. It's like when I got a week long suspension during the last week of high school for doing grad pranks a couple of years ago. Thanks for the suspension chief, I'm not coming back anyways

 

[[Tycho?]]

It costs like 50 grand to get your logo shown on a UFC broadcast.

 

[Rex Kwon Do]

As much as it pains me to side with the UFC on this over Rampage...it's basically like this...(just an example since I dont' know the figures)

"Nike pays us as a company, a shit load of money for sponsorship and get to their brand seen. You are an employee for this company. Reebok is not only direct competition but their biggest competition. If we are helping Reebok, we are hurting Nike"

...hurting Nike? The UFC has no official allegiance to Nike that I know of. They're a sponsor of individual fighters. There should be no conflict of interest for the UFC in letting one fighter wear Nike, and another wear Reebok.

The more likely reason for this problem is that Reebok doesn't want to pay what the UFC wants, as has been mentioned in this thread before.

 

[HardwoodOctagon]

Last I heard, the UFC said Reebok has not contacted them about sponsoring Rampage at this event. If that is true, the blame goes to Reebok and/or Rampage's manager, or no one. The UFC's sponsorshiop policy/process is well-established. Either Rampage's manager has failed to notify Reebok of the policy (unlikely) or Reebok just doesn't care and would rather just pay Rampage his sponsorship money anyway rather than pay Rampage + the UFC for having their logo on his clothes.

So, to me, this just seems like something that Rampage is twisting in his favor in his complaint-assault against the UFC on his way out. The UFC has no doubt pulled some shady things with sponsorships, but this does not appear to be one of them.

 

[Dedfish]

That's messed up, but good for Rampage that he has such a huge sponsor.

 

[Kabzie]

Why the fuck not??

 

[Ruv]

I think Carwin also had this type of issue with the UFC before as well.