Local fighter gets 18 sponsors

Every fighter trying to reach the UFC has a problem – how do you train full-time like a professional when you don’t get paid enough to live on? Getting a girlfriend with a good job is not unheard of. But the answer for most is working full-time and training as they can, or scraping by where things like health insurance are far out of reach.

Vancouver, Washington’s Austin Springer fought on Saturday night, losing his Prime Fighting featherweight title to Julian Erosa. His purse was $1,500. Back out management, the trainer, and taxes, and it not a lot of money – you’re an actual hundredaire.

However, Ben Fowlkes recently interviewed Springer, who has found a way.

The sponsor market for top fighters is not what it once was. UFC fighters have the Reebok deal, which pays out between $2,500 and $40,000. Fighters in Bellator and WsoF appear to be doing significantly worse still.

Springer has hustled and found a good market in local sponsors. He had 18 in all for Saturday’s fight. Not all paid cash. The local Max Muscle store covered his supplements. He’s sponsored by a sensory deprivation spa. If his car has problems, he’ll see if he can sell a sponsorship to the mechanic.

In all, on Saturday night, he got about $8,000 in sponsorship.

Some of the fights I’ve had, I’m basically relying on selling tickets, said Springer to MMAjunkie. But the goal is to get seen by the UFC, and if you’re only fighting a couple times a year, it’s going to take a long time to get there. So I’ve taken fights where the pay was not great at all, like maybe a couple hundred bucks. So if you want to make some money, you have to do it on ticket sales and sponsorships.

His biggest sponsor is Jesse Murray who owns Painting Perfection in La Center, Washington.

I’ve gotten one job out of it so far, and it was a good size job, but I’m not expecting much, said Murray to Fowlkes. I was interested in funding a guy, and it doesn’t hurt to have some write-off dollars. It can go to the government or it can go to someone trying to better themselves. That’s how I looked at it.

[Springer] told me, ‘Hey, here’s what I need to do to get better.’ And he didn’t pressure me with a sales pitch. He just laid it out. And some of it is, he’s got to be able to afford daycare for his kids when he’s gone training somewhere else.

If you are an MMA fanatic and live in Clark County, Washington, send Murray an email at paintingperfection.co@gmail.com or reach out online. And if you live in the Vancouver, Washington area, please check out Springer’s Elite Martial Arts gym!