SUMMARY
- UFC fighters accuse the company of violating the Antitrust Act.
- Recently, Joe Rogan and Brendan Schaub also delved into the highly controversial topic.
The UFC anti-trust lawsuit has brought up a lot of talking points over the past few weeks. Owing to the serious allegations against them made by fighters, the company could be made to pay hefty compensation. Recently, Joe Rogan and Brendan Schaub also delved into the highly controversial topic.
For those unaware, in November 2023, the UFC failed to overturn the class action status of a lawsuit. Notably, this involved around 1200 MMA fighters seeking over a billion dollars in unpaid wages. Moreover, the lawsuit highlighted numerous underhanded, anti-competitive tactics of the UFC, disregarding fair and equal pay for fighters.
In the following months, numerous documents, consisting of fighter contracts, have been made public. Similarly, fans have also come across heavily scrutinizing messages exchanged between UFC officials. As such, we have seen how the UFC intended to shoehorn Nate Diaz into a less lucrative contract and their attitude toward UFC Light Heavyweight Champion, Jon Jones.
Joe Rogan admits that the UFC was wrong for taking away fighters’ ability to earn through other sources
Previously, the UFC’s deal with Reebok came to an end after UFC 260 in 2021. During the time Reebok was the fight kit sponsor, fighters reportedly lost millions of dollars in sponsorships. Notably, during 2016-2017, numerous fighters spoke out against the deal and how little compensation was given to them for it.
To put matters into context, fighters were paid only a measly $2,000 in sponsorship money for donning the Reebok fight kits. However, there were times when fighters would not receive this compensation either. With the fighters unable to wear or represent their own sponsors for fights, it put them in almost a hostage-like situation.
Speaking on it, Rogan said, “Well, the Reebok thing, there’s a real argument there. It’s like, you all of a sudden take away the fighter’s ability to have ads. There was one of the things that I knew from you that you had more money in sponsors for your shorts or for the fight week than you did from your purse.” Among the many things pointed out in the lawsuit, this was one of the fighters’ primary pain points.
UFC athletes lost a lot of money due to Reebok deal
Despite admitting that the UFC made a big mistake with the Reebok deal, Joe Rogan also pleads for the UFC’s innocence. According to him, the UFC was aware that the fighters were getting ripped off but did not have an alternative plan in motion. Notably, after the Venum deal, UFC senior vice president and CEO Lawrence Epstein revealed that all the sponsorship money went exclusively to the fighters.
Speaking on the show, Joe Rogan also proposed a solution. “Here’s the solution I thought of. Get a bunch of people that are interested in sponsoring the UFC, approve them. Approve all those people and say, this is our list of fighters, who would you like to work with?… It would be lucrative for everybody if you had a bunch of sponsors.”
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At the time, fighters like Vitor Belfort, Gegard Mousasin, and Brendan Schaub spoke out against the sponsorship deal. Notably, Schaub stated that he would stand to make six figures in sponsorships if not for the Reebok deal. However, he was ridiculed by Dana White in public, which led to a big back-and-forth between them. Eventually, Schaub would prove his case, leading to further bad blood between him and the UFC head honcho.