Why Does the Reebok Era Still Come Up in Pay Conversations?
Before 2014, fighters wore their own sponsors' gear during fight week and in competition, and popular fighters could earn substantial personal sponsorship income on top of their purse. That changed when the UFC signed an exclusive six-year, $70 million outfitting deal with Reebok, which barred fighters from wearing personal sponsor logos and replaced that income with a standardized fight week incentive pay scale.
The Reebok scale started at a minimum of $3,500 per bout and topped out at $40,000 for title holders, a level that for many previously well-sponsored fighters amounted to a six-figure pay cut per bout. When Venum replaced Reebok as outfitting partner in April 2021, the incentive pay pool increased by roughly $1 million annually across the roster, but the underlying policy, exclusive outfitting with no room for personal sponsor logos, did not change.
