PED's and Sponsorships

The UFC has made headlines lately with several fighters testing positive for PED’s. This does not look good for the UFC or any sport. On January 6^th three days after he defeated Daniel Cormier at UFC 182 news that Jon Jones had a positive test for cocaine metabolites broke. After Anderson Silva defeated Nick Diaz on January 31^st at UFC 183 it was announced that he failed a test for anabolic steroids. January was a big month for the UFC; it had four major events that were very successful. Unfortunately it will be remembered as a month when two of the UFC's biggest stars and best pound-for-pound fighters of all time, both failed drug tests. Jones, the UFC light heavyweight champion was allowed to fight because his test was considered out of competition and cocaine is only prohibited in competition by the World Anti-Doping Agency code. The Nevada Athletic Commission could not discipline Jones, but he was fined $25,000 by the UFC for violating the organization's code of conduct.

This not only puts a black eye on the sport, but it has a monetary affect as well in terms of sponsorships and endorsements. Major corporations will start to pull away and terminate sponsor deals if they feel the sports organization doesn’t have control over their athletes, and if they feel the athletes they are sponsoring are violating moral clauses. Nike dropped Jon Jones after they found out about his positive test. Fortunate for him the UFC had just signed a partnership deal with Reebok to dress all UFC fighters in Reebok fighting gear, which will also include their coaches and corner people. Reebok has starting signing individual fighters to endorsement deals, and Jon Jones was their first followed by women’s bantamweight champion, Ronda Rousey.

The UFC will implement a new drug testing policy that will take affect on July 1, 2015. In conjunction with local athletic commissions will subject all main events and championship-bout fighters to enhanced, out-of-competition drug testing. The UFC also announced that it would conduct random, out-of-competition tests for all the fighters on the roster, which currently totals 96 fighters regardless of whether those athletes have scheduled fights. UFC President Dana White said, "If you are using PED’s, you're going to get caught”.