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Flashback: Rob Maysey talks about Zuffa’s new marketing rights agreement
By Zach Arnold | November 19, 2008
This is why we have a radio show. On June 26th of this year, we had Rob Maysey on as our special guest to talk about UFC’s new marketing rights agreement. (Listen to the interview here.) Get on board and check out the show if you don’t have it already saved on your computer. Start at the 13 minute mark of the radio show to hear the interview.
We will update this post throughout the day on Thursday with links to what others on the Internet and in the general sports media have to say about Jon Fitch and others from American Kickboxing Academy getting cut by UFC President Dana White.
Rob Maysey articles:
- Billion-dollar UFC enters merchandising in big way: Good Deal For Fighters?
- UFC Increases Pressure — Contacting Fighters Directly
MMA Payout articles:
Media Reaction:
- Bloody Elbow – Why Zuffa needs competition
- AOL Fanhouse – Jon Fitch comments during Hardcore Sports radio interview
- Steve Barry – Refuse to give up lifetime video game rights? The UFC cuts you. Ask Jon Fitch.
- Total MMA – Fighting is a Tough Business: Fitch looking for work
- Sherdog – Jon Fitch comments on release
- Sam Caplan – For an agency to alienate themselves from the UFC is considered to be an act of suicide
- Danny Acosta: UFC’s Epic Fail
- Michael David Smith – Just which fighters have leverage in UFC?
- Josh Gross (SI) – No signature, no fighting
- Fightlinker – Black Wednesday
- Josh Stein – The Fitch/White debacle: abject failure
MMA Weekly – Jon Fitch interview
The American Kickboxing Academy welterweight standout explained that the situation for the urgency of the contract from the UFC might have stemmed from another company, EA Sports, putting out an MMA video game of its own. Apparently the UFC had promised all of its fighters exclusively to THQ, the makers of the upcoming UFC Undisputed 2009 game scheduled for release in spring of 2009.
“We were already promised to THQ by the UFC, even though none of us were under contract (for that), in order to save face, they had to force us to sign this thing,” he explained.
Eurosport – Swick ‘to avoid pals’
Mike Swick has told Eurosport-Yahoo! he can see a bright future in the UFC welterweight division – despite his plans to avoid fights against team-mates Josh Koscheck and Jon Fitch.
And as for potential fights against buddies Koscheck and Fitch?
“I fight them every day – and for free,” Swick joked. “I would not want to have to fight them. There are so many guys in this division, I am sure we will have plenty of competition without fighting each other.”
Topics: MMA, Media, UFC, Zach Arnold | 5 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback | Share This
Excerpt from my blog post about this debacle:
“If there was ever any doubt that fighters need a union, this kind of bullying and threatening behavior by the UFC’s management reinforces the need for a union. Through their own hubris, the UFC has actually made the case for a fighters’ union in a stronger way than anyone ever has in the past… The UFC is going to continue with this kind of despotic behavior for as long as they can get away with it. Until there is a union, the fighters have no leverage with which to challenge the UFC’s behavior.”
And he just keeps digging the hole deeper for himself (Dana White quote as posted on Five Ounces of Pain):
“It’s like all the media wants to jump up and go ‘Oh the UFC! The UFC!” Shut up! Shut up. Every one of you shut your mouth. Mind your business.”
He is apparently unaware that covering the sport is the media’s business, not just putting out slightly reworded press releases.
It’s also ironic/hypocritical that the UFC always says how much they hate to talk about money… until the second there’s a contract dispute of some kind, in which case they want to get very specific down to the dollar.
It’s also ironic/hypocritical that White is going on and on about the economy as if the UFC itself is in some kind of financial trouble. They have $300 million in annual revenue according to S&P. They just had a PPV event with a gross of $54 million if the UFC’s own estimates are accurate (so Zuffa’s share would be roughly $27 million). They pay their athletes, as a whole, a lower percentage of gross revenue than the athletes in any other major sport. They have a TV deal that pays them over $33 million per year, and that’s without factoring in the extra fees for UFC U.K. shows that are numbered events.
It’s crystal clear in the USA Today blog interview that what the UFC is trying to do is separate the fighters from their agents.
Dana White is citing Mike Swick as an example of a model employee, a “partner” as he words it, who called White personally and said to forget about his management because he’s with the UFC. In other words (and if what White says is accurate), Swick is willing to sign the merchandising rights deal. That’s what the UFC wants.
White says in the same interview that if Fitch would just call him and do the same thing (ie, separate himself from his management and agree to sign what the UFC wants him to sign), that he would do that in two seconds.
He also puts unnamed “other MMA camps” on notice that he’ll cut off all relations with them just like he did with AKA if they don’t do what he wants.
On a comical note, here’s another quote from the USA Today interview: “We don’t do anything wrong. We treat everybody the right way and we treat people the way that we want to be treated.”
[...] Flashback: Rob Maysey talks about Zuffa’s new marketing rights agreement [...]
Does Dana’s greed surprise anyone?
MMA and the fighters need competition to stop the UFC monopoly.
Everyone deserves a fair shake especially the fighters.