Carlos Condit on the lost buffer that outside sponsor endorsements provided

Yesterday, an historical moment in the sport made headlines when the Professional Fighter’s Association announced its formation and plans to collectively bargain the terms and conditions of employment on behalf of UFC fighters. It’s not the first fighter’s association, but it does claim to have serious powerhouse backing from other sports’ union leaders.

Three things should be noted with this announcement:

1. Auspicious timing just weeks after the announced $4B sale of the UFC

2. PFA will only represent UFC fighters

3. MMAFA’s (the first fighter’s association) tireless efforts to bring the Ali Act to MMA

The MMAFA issued its own statement urging fighters and managers to decline requests from entities offering to assist in organizing a fighter’s union, which can be read here.

At a time when the sponsor landscape has all but dried up, thanks in part to the UFC’s extreme sponsor taxes and subsequent exclusive Reebok endorsement agreement, many fighters find themselves with little to no options for having that extra income that they had worked so hard to secure. When you factor in that they never had a say in the matter, it becomes an even more bitter pill to swallow.

One of the UFC’s top tier welterweights, Carlos Condit, has voiced concerns about the need for fighters to have a collective bargaining voice. In a recent interview with the Three Amigos Podcast, he elaborated on the particulars of sponsorships, both past and present.

“By the time I got the notoriety to get bigger sponsors, the sponsorship tax had already taken effect, but I still had some pretty lucrative sponsors. Nothing super crazy, but definitely enough to cover training expenses to give me a little bit of a buffer, and a little bit of security in case I got hurt, or in case my opponent pulled out of a fight.

I’ve been eight weeks into a fight camp, two weeks out from a fight, having paid coaches, booked plane tickets, and invested quite a bit of money in my camp, only to not be able to fight because my opponent got hurt. Boom. I’m out that money. It sucks.”

“We weren’t consulted. This thing…this Reebok deal that affected us so heavily…nobody asked our opinion, nobody sought to ask …

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