What started as a tense confrontation at the UFC Athletes Retreat 2017 earlier this month turned into a collaborative process for fighters disgruntled with the promotion’s sponsorship policies.

Now, they’re waiting to see if words turn into action.

After UFC lightweight Kajan Johnson had interrupted a presentation to call out official apparel maker Reebok on lost sponsorship revenue, officials called a meeting to air fighters’ grievances.

Over 90 minutes, Johnson and several others proposed solutions they hope will put more money in fighters’ pockets while improving relations with the promotion and its sponsors. Attendance was estimated at around 100 fighters, according to Johnson, women’s bantamweight Sara McMann and UFC lightweight Joe Lauzon, who spoke to MMAjunkie about the meeting.

Among the ideas fighters pitched:

• Bring back sponsor banners
• More transparency about the financials surrounding the UFC’s sponsorship deal with Reebok
• Hire a UFC rep to leverage local sponsors

All of the ideas amount to getting more money to trickle down to the combatants in the octagon. And while that might run contrary to the promotion’s goals of slashing costs while maximizing profits, fighters agree the promotion needs to make concessions to ensure a good working relationship.

“We took a huge hit on sponsorship, and we somehow need to make that up,” Johnson told MMAjunkie.

A catalyst

It took only a few minutes for Johnson to lose his cool at the presentation.

He was aggravated by a lack of acknowledgment from presenters about the losses fighters faced in the wake of UFC deals with major sponsors like Reebok.

Just prior to attending the fighter summit, Johnson had been in Washington D.C. to push lawmakers to include MMA in the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act. A recent shoulder surgery had brought into sharp focus his mortality in the sport. He’d joined the Mixed Martial Arts Fighters Association, eager to take up the cause of improving working conditions for fighters.

When Johnson stood up, he didn’t necessarily intend to make a scene. But when a sponsor rep from Budweiser showed up to a presentation apparently intoxicated, indicating fighters should act like UFC lightweight champ Conor McGregor to maximize opportunities, he couldn’t help himself.

Johnson didn’t have a speech prepared, but he had one key statistic memorized: He said he’d lost 80 percent of the money he’d previously received from sponsors when the UFC struck a deal with Reebok.

When a UFC interviewer tried to change the subject and the Budweiser rep said the sponsor’s goal is promote the fighters, he angrily fired back.

“I was like, ‘Don’t give me that,'” Johnson recalled. “‘Don’t give me that (expletive). You don’t care about me. All you care about is your bottom line. How do you sleep at night?’

“Then, finally, the Reebok guy said he slept OK. Then I called him a sociopathic capitalist, which may have been out of line.”

UFC officials then approached, asking if he’d address his concerns outside. Contrary to reports on Twitter, Johnson said he wasn’t forcibly removed. Still, the confrontation brought the presentation to an early close.

Johnson said by the time he finished speaking to the officials, UFC reps had written two pages of notes. When he returned to his hotel room, he feared he would be released from his contract.

On Twitter, he said as much:

“I didn’t know if I was going to walk into a room with (UFC President) Dana (White) and (UFC co-owner) Ari (Emanuel) and (UFC COO) Lawrence (Epstein) and them be like, ‘Yeah, here’s your pink slip – you’re fired,'” Johnson said. “I was pretty scared.”

But shortly after, the UFC sent out a message to fighters on an app created specifically for the summit. There would be an additional meeting at 6 p.m. on May 21 “to continue the discussion on our athlete outfitting policy” with the UFC’s senior vice president of global consumer products, Tracey Bleczinski.

Impromptu meeting

By Sunday evening at the summit, many of the fighters already had other presentations to attend, or they were training. So by the time the outfitting policy meeting got started, the crowd was about a third of those who’d witnessed Johnson’s confrontation.

Sara McMann

McMann anticipated getting a lecture from UFC officials and was reluctant about attending. But after watching Johnson give Reebok officials a hard time, she thought it would be entertaining to watch another round.

It didn’t quite turn out like that.

Those who showed up were eager to voice opinions. And they wanted to do it as a single unit. When it was suggested the fighters break into groups, they protested.

“I’m like, ‘Nope, we’re all sticking together,'” Johnson said. “‘You can address us all. We all need to hear the same information.'”

With lines drawn, the UFC, represented by Bleczinski and Epstein, asked fighters to stop publicly attacking Reebok and instead direct complaints to the UFC. McMann countered the attacks were directed at the sponsor for a very simple reason.

“I said, ‘We can’t very well do that because we could get fired,'” she said. “‘Reebok can’t fire us. If they’re getting the backlash for that, we’re not as scared about them.'”

UFC lightweight Lauzon dissented somewhat on that point, saying fighters were being counterproductive by attacking a sponsor whose future business wasn’t assured.

“You shouldn’t go posting nasty things on Facebook and hope that they’re going to get better,” he said. “If anything, it makes things worse.”

All agreed there could be better communication between the promotion, sponsors and fighters. Ultimately, though, the fighters focused on how the UFC could make the sponsorship program more flexible, bringing more opportunities to be compensated beyond what they receive for wearing Reebok apparel.

With more leeway on sponsors, McMann said, the promotion could expect fighters to better represent flagship sponsors like Reebok, which is in the second year of a six-year deal with the UFC. The current relationship, she said, ensured both parties would not want to remain in business when the contract expired.

“If I was a company, I would not want to re-sign,” she said. “But if things can be restructured for the UFC, maybe ask Reebok what the athletes can do to help push their product, and in turn, what (Reebok) will do is when they re-sign with the UFC, they give more money. So everybody’s boat floats a little higher.”

Joe Lauzon

One of the ideas that resonated strongly as a revenue booster was the idea of bringing back the sponsor banners. Lauzon indicated potential broadcast partners were one of the main reasons the UFC disallowed companies like Lumber Liquidators from putting patches on fighters’ shorts. But he and Johnson argued that a banner would avoid cluttering the fighter’s official Reebok uniform and still give outside sponsors valuable exposure.

“ESPN really liked the fact that there weren’t so many logos plastered on everyone,” Lauzon said. “ESPN didn’t necessarily want to give coverage to a company like Microsoft. If they had a sponsor banner, then that doesn’t really affect that. You see it before a fight, but it’s not highlighted.”

McMann also pressed for Reebok to open up one additional spot for sponsors on fighters’ shorts. She pointed out the UFC had already allowed major sponsors such as Monster to place logos on the uniform, and the inclusion of an additional company – a non-competitor to current UFC sponsors – wouldn’t ruin its “clean” look.

“If we got one or two more spots, that would help us out a lot financially,” she said.

To get the process up and running, McMann pushed for the idea of creating a job within the UFC to find and cultivate the types of local sponsors previously acquired by fighters and their managers – car dealerships, pro-audio stores and auto-body shops. With the weight of the UFC’s brand, she argued, smaller sponsors who’d left the market when uniforms were implemented might be convinced to renew their support. Even with current restrictions on what fighters can and can’t wear on fight week, she stressed there are enough chances to provide exposure.

“Find some of the smaller sponsorships and give them to up-and-coming fighters as your potential Anderson Silvas – the people who are coming up in the sport but aren’t at McGregor’s level yet,” she said. “It eases the burden of this. Because outside of two or three weeks a year, we have all that time to advertise for these other sponsors, and we’re willing to do that. We’re totally fine using our platform to do that.”

One thing critical to making fighters willing partners in the current situation, Lauzon said, is transparency. The veteran pointed out a shortfall between reported payouts to fighters and the Reebok deal’s reported value after the partnership was announced. With $70 million going to the promotion over six years, and reported payouts to fighters totaling $12.3 million, Lauzon said, there was a $10 million gap. (To arrive at that figure, Lauzon cited a post on message board Reddit, which is based on a story that values the deal at $70 million. According to investor documents, the Reebok deal is structured to increase payments to the UFC over the life of the deal, maxing out in 2020 with an $8 million “exposure fee” and $4 million annual revenue guarantee.)

Although Lauzon knew from visiting Reebok’s headquarters, which is located just 10 miles away from his home in Bridgewater, Mass., that a significant portion of that revenue went to funding staff, logistics and materials needed to service the program, he said fighters might not lash out so much at the promotion and its apparel maker if they knew where the money is going.

“A lot of people were super pissed, thinking the UFC’s just pocketing this $10 million, and I don’t think that’s the case,” he said. “But I, as a fighter, would like to know what it’s being spent on. They’re giving us short that they’re selling for $130, T-shirts that are selling for $90. I would much rather fight in a cheaper pair of shorts and a T-shirt. If that cost of equipment is less, then it goes back to the fighters. Maybe they give those lower-tier guys $5,000 instead of $2,500.

“I don’t know how much everything costs. Maybe shorts cost $60 to make and it’s not such a big deal. Tell us where the money is going and show us, and a lot more people will have less to complain about. Right now, it’s big question mark. There’s $10 million – I don’t know where it went. When we don’t have numbers, we’ll speculate, and we’re going to think the worst.”

Naturally, the fighters wanted feedback from the UFC on the feasibility of their ideas and whether the promotion would open up the books. The fighters agreed the promotion’s reps were generally receptive over the two-hour gathering.

“Lawrence Epstein seemed really empathetic to our cause,” Johnson said. “He seemed like he actually cared, and he wanted to create solutions. It became much less about a fight between the fighters and executives, and more about us working together to make this better for all of us.”

But for as warm as the reception was, the reps stopped short of making promises about what they could and couldn’t do.

“That they weren’t really able to comment on,” Johnson said. “But I’m telling you, if it doesn’t happen, I’m going to hold them accountable. I’m not going away, and we’re going to do this all over again.”

Asked to comment on the meeting and what ideas, if any, the UFC plans to adopt after the meeting, UFC officials did not answer an email requesting comment.

The fallout

Johnson still worries he may lose his job. He has cast himself as an adversary to the UFC on business matters, and that’s a role not easily shrugged off by fighters working their way up the ranks.

There are a variety of ways the promotion could retaliate without immediately releasing Johnson from his contract. He could be kept inactive for a long period of time. He could receive unfavorable matchups or be called on short notice as an injury replacement. He could be denied performance/fight-night bonuses.

On the other hand, he could go on an impressive winning streak, climb to the top of the UFC lightweight ranks, and create a platform to more powerfully advocate for fighters.

But even with those looming possibilities, Johnson doesn’t regret standing up that afternoon. It’s not necessarily his intention to organize UFC contractees – the MMAFA is already a well-established option. He is more interested in standing up for what he feels is right. While he regrets taking out all of his frustrations on a UFC sponsor, which, he noted, isn’t responsible for paying fighters under the athlete outfitting policy, he felt he could not longer stay silent.

“I know the direction we need to go, and I’m going to do everything in my power to do that,” he said. “If that means that people are following me, that’s dope. If that means a higher profile athlete steps up and leads me and is inspiring me, that’s amazing. I’m not here to be a leader. That’s not why I’m doing this. I’m just trying to create change.”

Still, he can sense there’s a strong desire among fighters to change the current situation. When he walked into meetings after his initial confrontation, fighters gave him a hero’s welcome. Even those who didn’t agree with his confrontational style respected his move.

“I don’t think he went about it the best way, but it got results,” Lauzon said.

Or at least, it was a start. In fact, the UFC athlete outfitting policy and its sponsor policies remain unchanged. There’s no indication yet whether the meeting of the minds will yield changes that replace the lost revenue from the Reebok deal. But there’s little doubt the fighters are losing their patience with the status quo.

“Everybody is starting to wake up,” Johnson said. “Well, they’re already awake – nobody was blind to the problems.

“But now, they’re mobilizing.”

For more on the UFC’s upcoming schedule, check out the UFC Rumors section of the site.