Benson Henderson talks fighters association, state of sponsorships in Bellator

Benson Henderson is in a unique position these days. The former UFC lightweight champion is one of the few fighters to have experienced all sides of the aisle, having competed in the UFC under the pre- and post-Reebok eras, as well as for Bellator MMA, the promotion he now calls home.

That experience gives Henderson a perspective few fighters have on the business of the fight game, and Henderson shared a little of that perspective Monday on The MMA Hour, revealing how the post-Reebok sponsorship landscape treated him for his Bellator debut in April.

“For my last Bellator fight, I had one sponsor, and with that one sponsor, just one, I made just shy of what I made for the Reebok sponsorship,” Henderson said Monday on The MMA Hour. “But I am aware, I do know, that it’s going to take a while to build up those sponsors again. Sponsors in the UFC were at one point a very high dollar amount. You got paid quite a bit of money. After the Reebok thing took over, and all of the companies kind of heard about that, the value went down a lot.

“I’ll have to build back up to that, and I’m a patient man. I know my worth. I’m not going to sell myself short. If the Ritz Carlton has 100 rooms, and then 75 of the rooms are empty, do they rent out the rooms for any cheaper? Do they rent out the rooms for only $100 instead of that $700-$800 range that they normally rent out the rooms for one night? No. They know what the value of those rooms are. They know what their worth is. They hold to their worth, $700-$800 a night. I’m not going to sell myself short, I know what my value is.”

As a veteran with 20 combined fights in the UFC and WEC, Henderson earned $15,000 in Reebok sponsorships for his final UFC fight against Jorge Masvidal in Nov. 2015.

The number is a far cry from the figures high-level veterans like Henderson earned before the UFC’s exclusive deal with Reebok reshaped the sponsorship landscape in MMA, however Henderson is encouraged by the potential opportunities Bellator’s freedom provides him moving forward.

“Some sponsors are still wary of dropping the same amount of money they were dropping before, and that’s my job to convince them that I am worth it,” Henderson said. “Like, ‘no, I understand you guys are hesitant about sponsoring an athlete for this much money, but when you see the numbers, when you see freaking …

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