PFA head appears on The MMA Hour

There are now at least two groups trying to form a union or players group in mixed martial arts.

The first is Rob Maysey’s MMAFA which has for years advocated for a players union.

The latest is the Professional Fighters Association, which announced it’s formation, via press release on Thursday. It included words of support from the NFL, MLB and NHL Players Association directors.

The PFA appears to be solely directed at the UFC, and not professional MMA generally, or elite pro MMA generally. The Viacom-owned Bellator MMA, is nowhere mentioned in the release or on the site. Maysey has pointed out that the PFA is run by baseball agent Jeff Borris, who works for the Ballengee Group sports agency that represents fighters Nick and Nate Diaz. Maysey further argues that an agent cannot fairly represent an entire group of fighters.

Borris, an attorney, appeared recently on Ariel Helwani’s The MMA Hour, and said his interest in the union began when his colleague Lloyd Pearson who represents Nate Diaz, asked him to look over the bout agreement for the first fight with Conor McGregor.

“It was in January, and I was doing baseball salary arbitration cases for The Ballengee Group and at that time, Lloyd Pearson had just done the first bout agreement to McGregor vs. Diaz,” began Borris, as transcribed by Adam Guillen Jr. for MMA Mania. “He came up to me and he said, ‘Would you take a look at the bout agreement and the promotional agreement just to have another set of eyes look at it?’

“So I read it and I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I said, ‘This isn’t valid, this isn’t enforceable, this won’t fly, this has to be changed.’ And he said, ‘This is the way UFC does business.’ And then I started learning more and more about it. We went to their headquarters and had a meeting about it with Lorenzo and Dana and we brought it up. I said, ‘Dana, how come these fighters haven’t ever unionized?’ And he said, ‘They’re not employees, they are independent contractors,’ which I thought was a very self-serving statement at the time. So he kind of scoffed at the idea and I walked out of that meeting, looked at Lloyd and said, ‘I’m going to unionize these guys.’

“When I read their initial agreements, I’ve worked in baseball for 30 years and I think the baseball players union is the gold standard as far as unions in professional sports. The rights of baseball players are light years ahead of any other sport. And I said, ‘This just can’t happen.’ With the sale also, it indicates that the UFC is really the premiere league. When you look at MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, it’s right up there with them now and these fighters need representation. I mean their rights right now are being trampled upon and it’s probably worse than ever. UFC is profiting, which is okay because they are running a successful business and they are entitled to it; but the fighters are the show, they are the ones that drive that business and they are entitled to be compensated for their efforts.”

“First thing I did was talk to fighters. I talked to them in small groups, on an individual basis. My batting average is a 1,000, every single one of them that I talked to want this. One common theme is that a lot of them are fearful that UFC will retaliate against them. Inside the Octagon, they are courageous, they show no fear, but outside the Octagon, in the business arena, they’re scared. And I tried to tell them that, ‘Listen, there are rules in this country that prevent employers that keep employees from organizing. Don’t worry, they are not going to retaliate.’ I would love to name names of the fighters I talked to, and I would love to name names of agents, I reached out to the agent community. I talked to all of them because I know as an agent in baseball how much the union relied upon me to relay the message to my players. So, I’m reaching out to agents, as well. And the fear of reprisals is unbelievable. I don’t know what the UFC has done to try to bully them or instil these fear into the fighters, but, they’ve done a good job.”

“Let’s look at the licensing situation. Let’s talk about the Reebok deal. The money comes into the UFC, and then they are going to chop it up however they feel. Look at the Brock Lesnar situation; they usually split the money based on seniority and the amount of fights somebody has had. He got the least at UFC 200 because he had the least amount of seniority, yet he was probably the biggest draw. How is the guy that’s the biggest draw making the least amount of money? How does the biggest draw not have choice in wearing Reebok? What if Adidas wanted to do a deal, or what if Nike wanted to do a deal with him? He’s gotta have the freedom to be able to negotiate, or his representatives have to have the freedom to be able to negotiate with other groups. But, the UFC says,’You’re wearing this, and this is what we are paying you whether you like it or not.’ So that is something as an agent, I laugh at. That would never fly in baseball or any other sport. Yet it fly’s in UFC? That must change.”

Borris also noted that he does not begrudge the UFC the success they have achieved, and is fan of the sport and the company.

“What I would like to have happen, is that the UFC understands what we’re doing, respect it in a business sense,” said Borris. “I don’t begrudge the UFC. I’m a fan of UFC’s business model. I think they’ve done tremendous and I think their $4 billion sale is well-deserved and they are to be applauded for what they’ve done and they should be concerned with their bottom line. But these fighters do also, they are the ones that drive their business. I would like them to respect that in a business atmosphere and compensate the fighters appropriately.”