Based on John Nash's reporting, the UFC has made one significant and one less significant contract change since 2017. It's unclear if these were piecemeal changes or across the board, but if something came of the antitrust lawsuit, it's this.
Cliffs: UFC contracts appear to have 5-year maximum lengths now and also fighters can have 1 min of their fight footage for the gram. You'll have your first group of fighters automatically becoming free agents next year, likely including GSP.
1. The big one is that some UFC contracts since the July 1, 2017 have a 5-year maximum, compared to prior when contracts could be frozen in perpetuity when a fighter sits out or retires. There are a few important reasons the UFC would do that when they did
-The class period for the antitrust lawsuit goes through June 2017, this change would make it harder for someone to expand the class period (and thus WME's exposure to litigation and damages), which is what CB Dolloway and Kajan Johnson are doing now.
-It's arguably a tacit admission from WME that the perpetual nature of UFC contracts combined with how broad they are wouldn't survive a court challenge and would probably be deemed illegal.
-Why a 5-year maximum? This is the limit several states put on contracts between boxers and managers/promoters (NJ and California, 4 years in Nevada). That's in addition to several states having mandatory sunset provisions on nearly all contracts (California's is 7 years, for example).
2. The more minor one is fighters now can be given 3 20 second clips of fight footage for them to promote themselves on social media. It has to be non-commercial, however, so other promotions or advertisers/sponsors can't use the footage. Part of the UFC's reason for hoarding all fight footage and purchasing Pride's library was to make it harder for other promotions to compete; sure, you can sign former UFC fighters, but you won't have any good promo footage to use of their career when you do.
Cliffs: UFC contracts appear to have 5-year maximum lengths now and also fighters can have 1 min of their fight footage for the gram. You'll have your first group of fighters automatically becoming free agents next year, likely including GSP.
1. The big one is that some UFC contracts since the July 1, 2017 have a 5-year maximum, compared to prior when contracts could be frozen in perpetuity when a fighter sits out or retires. There are a few important reasons the UFC would do that when they did
-The class period for the antitrust lawsuit goes through June 2017, this change would make it harder for someone to expand the class period (and thus WME's exposure to litigation and damages), which is what CB Dolloway and Kajan Johnson are doing now.
-It's arguably a tacit admission from WME that the perpetual nature of UFC contracts combined with how broad they are wouldn't survive a court challenge and would probably be deemed illegal.
-Why a 5-year maximum? This is the limit several states put on contracts between boxers and managers/promoters (NJ and California, 4 years in Nevada). That's in addition to several states having mandatory sunset provisions on nearly all contracts (California's is 7 years, for example).
2. The more minor one is fighters now can be given 3 20 second clips of fight footage for them to promote themselves on social media. It has to be non-commercial, however, so other promotions or advertisers/sponsors can't use the footage. Part of the UFC's reason for hoarding all fight footage and purchasing Pride's library was to make it harder for other promotions to compete; sure, you can sign former UFC fighters, but you won't have any good promo footage to use of their career when you do.
