The Maximum Fighting Championship president/owner Mark Pavelich has spoken out recently about some of the business practices of rival Ultimate Fighting Championship.
The issue at hand is the way the UFC handles contracts with clothing sponsors by dictating to these companies who they can, and cannot do business with.
It’s almost comical – not on his part but on the part of these clothing companies. They cave in and pay his organization a great deal of money just to have the opportunity to sponsor fighters, who they then pay an individual fee to as well. What these clothing brands fail to understand is that the entire organization that “DW” runs is sponsored by a competing clothing company.
These other brands are paying to represent themselves, yet they will never get the brand recognition they are seeking since the company itself has what would be considered a title sponsorship with another clothing brand – probably the most-recognizable brand in the industry. You are competing in an uphill battle that you can never win.
Now “DW” has instructed these other clothing brands that they have to stop sponsoring other MMA events or they will not be allowed to sponsor fighters in his event – even after fully paying him for the right to sponsor and paying the fighters individually. He is collecting money by the armored truck full from these companies, and yet he’s still able to tell them where to spend the rest of their money at the same time. Has he or anyone in his company ever heard of something called “restraint of trade?”
Maybe a good example of this would be from this past summer when TapouT was set to sponsor Fedor Emelianenko in his fight against Fabricio Werdum. Pictures of the T-shirt were already posted but pressure from the UFC forced the company to pull their support at the last minute.
What’s your opinion? The UFC is the top dog in the mma world but does it give them the right to dictate who companies sponsor?
Source MaximumFighting.com