Unless you've been living under a rock, you heard the recent blockbuster news (video) that Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) inked a landmark apparel outfitting deal with Reebok that will see the athletic shoe and clothing juggernaut be the provider of the official UFC uniform.
Expected to be unveiled in July 2015, the uniform will be issued to all fighters to wear for all upcoming events thereafter ... for better or worse.
The deal, though, will likely go beyond just fight uniforms, and perhaps feature a clothing line that would combine UFC and Reebok logos. And, according to Matt O'Toole, President of Reebok, in an interview on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street," women will be a primary target demographic.
His words:
"Women are really the ones who are taking this discipline of training like a fighter -- whether its boxing or mixed martial arts -- and they're using that as their way to stay fit."
Thanks to Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) women's bantamweight champion, Ronda Rousey, UFC has garnered a whole new demographic female fans. And now, Reebok will look to do the same with the new deal that will see the two companies do business with each other for the next six years.
"Rowdy" offered her take on the deal in a post-press conference interview with Ariel Helwani:
"I'm excited to see what they come up with. Women's clothing for MMA has never existed before, so I'm excited to see what they come up with.... I haven't had a sports apparel sponsor even up until now. I was holding out for a really big, respectable brand name like Reebok to come along so this is exactly what I have been waiting for. I like to keep my fighting clothes extremely barren -- as plain and black as possible. I don't have any other sponsors that would complain or be upset about not being on my shorts or something like that. It works out perfectly for me, actually. I think this will definitely help the younger fighters coming up right out of the gate. They have a secure sponsor and, I don't know how everybody's management deals happen, but this is something UFC did and UFC got. I think every single Reebok penny deserves to go right to the fighters and the fighters only. The only people that have a right to take a cut are the people who hustled for it, the UFC. And because they want the fighters to do well they are giving up that cut and giving all the money to the fighters. I think a lot of fighters will be making more money with Reebok because it's all for them."
Look for Rousey to be one of the main ambassadors for this deal moving forward, with a possible sponsorship with Reebok included for the former Judoka down the road. That's not a done deal yet, but her coy response in the video below certainly makes it seem inevitable.
After all, as White put's it, "She's changing the way that women look at themselves and think about themselves."
Deep stuff.
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