The UFC has a special closed-to-the public media event scheduled for Wednesday, at which they will unveil their “newly designed Athlete Marketing and Development Program”, the organization announced yesterday. The event starts at 2 p.m. ET and will be streamed live on UFC.com.
There is no information yet on what this new program or media event will be about, but judging from the name, it is likely that the highly discussed athlete-outfitting program with the UFC’s new and exclusive sponsor Reebok could be introduced to the public. Starting in July, every UFC athlete is obliged to only wear specifically designed Reebok apparel during official UFC media events and fights nights. According to the UFC, there will be special designs for every fighter and nationality. The designs have yet to be unveiled.
Originally, tomorrow’s media event has been announced as the public introduction of the UFC’s new “Athlete Health and Performance Program”. Besides UFC president Dana White, CEO Lorenzo Fertitta and COO Lawrence Epstein, the organization’s new “Vice President of Athlete Health and Performance”, former BALCO investigator Jeff Novitzky, will also attend the event. So this could also be about the UFC’s ongoing fight against performance-enhancing drugs.
When the UFC hired Novitzky after multiple drug-related scandals at the beginning of the year, they released an official statement saying: “Novitzky will spearhead the development of the organization’s clean initiative education program designed to ensure that every athlete competes with natural ability on an even playing field.”
The UFC promised to spend more money and effort on drug testing and hand out stiffer penalties for drug abusers, after prominent names such as Anderson Silva, Jon Jones and Hector Lombard have been caught with either performance-enhancing or recreational drugs during the first couple of months of this year.