Tate: Reebok deal unfair to women’s MMA
Miesha Tate: “The UFC has been around a long time, but Women’s MMA in the UFC has been there for a little over two years so it’s not fair.”
Since announcing the actual figures fighters will receive for the UFC’s sponsorship agreement with Reebok, several fighters have spoken out that the deal will actually hurt their sponsorship income. Miesha Tate recently spoke to B/E and stated that she will actually be losing 80-90% of her revenue received from sponsorships:
“I think it’s a little bit unfair for Women’s Mixed Martial Arts because we’ve barely been in the UFC very long,” she states. “We don’t have the same number of fights as the guys do, because they wouldn’t let us in forever, you know?”
“The UFC has been around a long time, but Women’s MMA in the UFC has been there for a little over two years so it’s not fair,” Tate continued. “There are guys like Clay Guida and Cowboy Cerrone, they’ve been fighting for the UFC for a long time so they’re going to have more fights because they’re men and they’re allowed to fight in the UFC for a long time. The women have not had the same opportunity.”
With the previous tiering system based on rankings, Tate would’ve had a higher payout from Reebok as she currently sits as the #2 bantamweight. A popular fighter like her still would’ve taken a bit of a pay cut in that system, but now she’s likely to lose a significant amount of sponsorship dollars.
“I probably have the most fights (among the female fighters) because of Strikeforce, and I’m still only on the second tier, so I get 5000 dollars,” she exclaimed. “So I’m losing probably 90% or like 80% of what I make in sponsorships, so that hurts.”