Efter att siffrorna på vad fighters tjänar av UFC:s avtal med sportjätten Reebok nyligen kom ut, har både UFC och Reebok fått kritik från många håll. Någon som tar deras sida är dock den tidigare titelutmanaren Chael Sonnen, som tycker att fighters aldrig borde haft rätt att bära sin egen sponsorutrustning.
Den frispråkige Chael Sonnen (28-14-1) drar sig sällan för att ge sin åsikt i frågor. Den trefaldiga titelutmanaren gav nyligen sin syn på kontroversen kring siffrorna från Reebok-avtalet som nyligen kom ut. Flertalet fighters har ställt sig kritiska till avtalet, inklusive Myles Jury (15-1) som tog det ett steg längre. Sonnen försvarar emellertid UFC i frågan.
I en intervju med MMA Junkie hade han följande att säga:
“As fighters, we never should have been able to get our own sponsors. No executive producers of a show, whether it’s the silver screen or your television set, allows paid talent to come in and then have outside sponsors. If you watch ‘Saturday Night Live’ and a guy shows up in a Nike shirt, you can bet your ass that NBC got the check for that Nike shirt and had wardrobe put it on that talent. Nowhere in the world does this happen.”
“If you pay for the camera and the lights and venues and take all the risk and are the entrepreneurs, you get all of the revenue. [UFC:s VD] Dana White broke that cycle a number of years ago because the UFC was so small that he was ashamed of what he was having to pay his guys. So he said, ‘Get money wherever you can. I’ll approve every sponsor, and I want you guys to have every dollar.’ I was there when he gave that speech to the fighters in 2005.”
Sonnen menade att det bara var en tidsfråga innan fighters inte längre skulle få bära sin egen utrustning, och det med all rätt då han inte anser att man borde ha fått det till att börja med.
“Eventually [fighters getting own sponsors was] going to go away, but it never should have been there in the first place, and that’s the part people are forgetting. Now, you get a major sponsor like Reebok. Imagine if that happened with any other executive producer of a television program. They’re going to get the money. Instead, the UFC is paying it back out, and people say, ‘Oh, that’s not enough.’ That’s normal human psychology. I’m not turning on the athletes, and I’m not trying to be a corporate guy here, but if you’re going to be objective, we should have never been allowed sponsors in the first place. That’s the part people are missing.”
“You’re looking around at what some guys are losing. Other guys are laughing all the way to the bank. But the bottom line is, we’re not entitled to that money. We’re hired under somebody else’s dime. It doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world – sport world or entertainment world – except the UFC.”
Sonnen påpekade även hur UFC:s löner har stigit de senaste tio åren, då minimumlönen från att ha varit $2,000 dollar 2005 har stigit med 400 % till $8,000 idag.
“You look at the UFC; I had my first fight in 2005, but the minimum pay back then was two and two, meaning $2,000 to show and $2,000 to win. The minimum pay now, 10 years later, is eight and eight – $8,000 to show and $8,000 to win. That is a 400 percent increase for the minimum. There is no company in the world – Fortunate 500 or you name it. Go to McDonald’s, Chevron, anything – nobody is paying 400 percent more a decade later except for the UFC. It’s unheard of how much more they’re paying percentage-wise, so it does matter.”
“Back when you allowed everyone to get their sponsors, it was because, ‘If you have a way to do it, go out and do it.’ That never should have happened. We’re fortunate that it did, and now there’s a major phycology that athletes are losing money when the reality is, it’s like, ‘Hey, thanks for that money we were given an opportunity to make.’”
Ligger det något i det Sonnen säger?
