As a guest on Dan Le Batard's show, Ariel Helwani criticized the UFC's uniform deal with Venum and their fight kit sponsorship deal with Crypto.com. He pointed out why those business moves are good for the UFC but unfair to the fighters.
"A $175,000, 000, 10-year deal. The biggest in UFC history. Guess what percentage of that money is going to the fighters?"
Ariel Helwani asked the show's hosts and producers to guess how much they think the fighters are earning from the UFC's deal with Crypto. The lowest guess was 7%, while the highest was 30%. To their surprise, Helwani revealed:
"The actual retail price is zero percent. Zero percent for the fighters. Just like the zero percent that they get from the TV deal. Just like the zero percent that they get from all of those other sponsors that are all over the cage."
This ‘kit’ deal comes after UFC previous signed a long term contract with Reebok in 2014, causing the fighters to take a huge financial hit as they were disallowed from wearing their own sponsored apparel in fights.
These are MMA fighters who’s careers and lives could be changed/over every time they step into the cage.