UFC 181 was probably the toughest weekend of Brendan Schaub’s MMA career. Not only did he get dominated in a TKO loss to Travis Browne, and then given a highly critical assessment by friend and UFC analyst Joe Rogan, but on his “Fighter and the Kid” podcast with Bryan Callen, he revealed that his sponsorship money immediately plummeted in the days following the UFC’s new sponsorship agreement with Reebok. MMA Fighting has the quotes:
“I don’t know enough details about (the UFC-Reebok deal), I really don’t. But even for this fight, because they knew July was coming and that’s when the Reebok deal starts, six of my sponsors like ‘no, can’t do it, man, there’s no future for us’’.”
“It’s the lowest I’ve ever made on sponsorship money, the Travis Browne fight. Ever, ever in my 13-fight career. It’s crazy, right?”
“I think the top guys might (benefit),” he said. “I think it helps the very top guys. From what I know, I don’t know all the facts. So the top 5 guys, the champ, it’s going to help, and the guys in the middle, I don’t think it’s going to help. But it helps the new guys too, who don’t get sponsors.”
You can view the complete segment in the video posted above.
One thing that is very much worth noting is the fact that this was actually Schaub’s podcast, and every episode is broadcast on the Fox Sports website. The entire UFC-Reebok segment was edited out of the Fox Sports upload, which is 4 minutes shorter.
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