An MMA Thanksgiving: 2015 All-Turkey Team

The UFC-Reebok Partnership

TRISTEN CRITCHFIELD: When the Ultimate Fighting Championship announced in December that it had signed a six-year deal to make Reebok the Las Vegas-based promotion’s exclusive outfitter, reactions were mixed.

Despite promises that fighters would receive “the vast majority of the revenue” from the agreement, there was plenty of skepticism to go around. In addition to eliminating much of the individuality that makes the sport unique, numerous fighters voiced concerns about significant losses in endorsement dollars. That Reebok sponsorship pay would be determined by a tiered system based on UFC.com rankings didn’t make matters any better.

At that point, there was still plenty of time to quiet the skeptics before the UFC’s outfitting policy officially took effect in July. After all, Reebok was a major apparel company with ties to many different prominent athletes and sports. Once the deal had time to unfold, everyone would feel a lot better.

Well, about that.

While the UFC smartly ditched the ranking-based payment plan in favor of a tenure-based compensation system, most everything else about the UFC-Reebok relationship to date has been an unmitigated disaster.

The official unveiling of the fight kit uniforms in Las Vegas this summer was a bizarre event in itself, never mind that the bland apparel made the fighters at July’s pseudo-fashion show look like a deck of Uno cards -- and that isn’t a compliment. Even more laughable were the errors that appeared in the online store. No matter what else Gilbert Melendez might accomplish in his MMA career, “Giblert” Melendez will forever live in infamy.

As time has passed, it has become increasingly evident that Reebok is not especially invested in the deal. Who can forget how the apparel company neglected to include Northern Ireland on an Ireland-themed shirt ahead of UFC Fight Night in Dublin last month? Errors are to be expected, but some of the mishaps at the outset of the UFC-Reebok relationship border on downright carelessness.

More importantly, more and more athletes continue to lament lost revenue as the deal takes hold, and that doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon. Maybe if Reebok appeared to be more invested in the UFC, if it attempted to be more creative and precise with its design, it would soften the blow of all those dwindling bank accounts. Instead, the UFC-Reebok deal has been a running punchline since its inception, only those most affected -- the athletes themselves -- aren’t laughing at all. Continue Reading » Rousimar Palhares