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It was clear from the launch of the UFC’s six-year partnership with footwear and apparel giant Reebok that the deal would divide athletes and fans alike.
From day one, Reebok has made blunder after blunder. Even at the presser to unveil the first ever UFC uniform, interim featherweight titleholder Conor McGregor was interviewed in front of a giant on-stage video monitor that misspelled the word ‘flexibility’.
And that’s not the last time Reebok could’ve used one of The Roar‘s expert proofreaders. Less than an hour after that PR event in New York City, the fighter replica kits went on sale at Reebok’s digital shopping centre where the hits kept on coming.
Many fighters’ names were misspelled, others had the wrong nickname, and a bunch featured the athlete’s birth name – not the name they’ve fought under in the UFC.
Heck, there was even a uniform for Josh Koscheck, who had already jumped ship to compete in rival mixed martial arts promotion Bellator by that point.
Since then, things haven’t got much better. Upon the UFC’s return to Ireland in October, the Reebok team released a cringeworthy shirt featuring a map of Ireland that cut off Northern Ireland.
It elicited a huge uproar from the UFC’s most rabid fan-base, and Reebok quickly issued an apology, citing a “design error”.
Yesterday, Reebok’s latest misstep made them the source of ridicule once again with the release of a T-Shirt for Anderson ‘The Spider’ Aldo – obviously a mistake, combining the names of Brazilian UFC legends Anderson Silva and Jose Aldo.
Matt O’Toole, Reebok’s brand president, attributes all these mistakes to “growing pains”.
I met with O’Toole inside a cosy coffee shop in Melbourne’s CBD after the UFC 193 weigh-ins a few weeks ago. During our chat, the 25-year veteran of the sports and apparel industry agreed that the early days of the UFC-Reebok agreement haven’t been perfect.
“We definitely expected a few bumps in the road,” O’Toole said. “We’re pioneering something that, to a lot of people, was seen as not a possibility – to take the sport of MMA and the UFC and really professionalise it.”
While O’Toole wasn’t willing to trash third-party sponsors like Condom Depot or Dude Wipes that previously littered fighter shorts, he did say they “weren’t helpful to the sport”.
“We’re huge admirers of the athletes. A lot of our employees are UFC fans and some of them were MMA fighters so we had a sense that these were not only amazing athletes but amazing people,” he added.
“We knew the ways that [fighters] were showing up in public wasn’t helpful to them, and being associated with us would help.”
To his point, since the implementation of Reebok’s exclusive fighter apparel, the shorts no longer look like a Nascar uniform. Instead, they just look incredibly bland and forgettable.
Today, each UFC bout features a fighter in black shorts with a white stripe against a rival in white shorts and a black stripe. Not exactly what I expected from a brand that boasted “flexibility” as one of it’s key selling points.
In years gone by, UFC stars had specialty shorts to set them apart from the pack. BJ Penn had a black belt printed across his white trunks, Tito Ortiz opted to have a flame design, and Anderson Silva strutted to the cage in yellow and black bumblebee shorts, just to name a few.
It seems that those days are over.
O’Toole did confirm that the team plans to unveil more designs – with additional colours and pieces of individuality – but has not put a timeline on when those changes will be implemented.
“What we’re looking at today won’t always be the kit. They will change, but whether it’s [in] a year or two years, we’ll have to wait and see.”
While O’Toole has copped all the criticisms over their designs on the chin, he isn’t willing to take the blame for sponsorship compensation.
Under the multi-year deal, the sponsor pay is determined through a tiered system based on your tenure with the UFC. Entry-level fighters with one to five UFC bouts make just $2500, and the most experienced pocket a guaranteed $20,000 to wear the Reebok logo into the Octagon.
The only exceptions to the system are the hand-chosen few with individual Reebok deals and fighters in championship bouts – with the titleholder taking home $50,000 and the challenger $40,000.
“There’s a big misunderstanding of Reebok’s role in fighter pay,” O’Toole explained. “Reebok is an energetic sponsor of the UFC and its athletes but within their organisation they have to decide the best way to pay fighters.”
The $70 million Reebok shelled out to the UFC sounds like a lot of money but once spread over six years and an overflowing roster of 500-plus fighters it suddenly seems less and less appealing.
Take last weekend’s UFC event in Seoul, South Korea for example. Seventeen of the 22 fighters on the show made the bare-minimum $2500 from the Reebok piggy bank.
And Benson Henderson, a former UFC champion who has served as a main eventer in nine of his past ten matches, took home $15,000 – a respectable sum, but markedly less than he would be expected to make in a free sponsorship market.
So, five months into the UFC-Reebok experiment, it’s safe to say it’s gotten off to a rocky start.
Most fighters have voiced their concerns over the agreement, with some more vocal than others. Featherweight contender Myles Jury posted a photo of a garbage bin filled to the rim with Reebok sneakers, and middleweight fighter Tim Kennedy has said he will “pass” on a Reebok payout if they’re only offering him $2500.
Heavyweight bruiser Brendan Schaub has even gone as far as to “step away” from the sport over the Reebok contract.
And the pushback from UFC fans has been even more brutal. Just a quick glance at Reebok’s Facebook page will give you an idea of what the sport’s most loyal army thinks of the apparel deal.
“Reebok should be ashamed of the s*** money they pay fighters,” one poster said on a recent link.
“Screw you Reebok. Your fight kits suck. Will never buy Rebook. Can you even spell Gilbert?” another added, poking fun at the an early typo on a Gilbert Melendez display uniform that read ‘Giblert Melendez’.
O’Toole understands the backlash, but he is confident that fans and fighters will eventually believe their dedication to growing the sport is genuine and learn to love Reebok’s long-term affiliation with the UFC.
“I’m definitely taking the long view,” he smiled.
“Even those who are most critical will look back on this in two or three years and say ‘thank god that deal happened because it’s elevated our sport to be as appealing as elite sports in the world’.”
That may be the case someday, but so far the UFC-Reebok fiasco has been a classic lose-lose situation.