Like many diehard fans of mixed martial arts, I was livid when I found out that the premiere fight league, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, signed a fat new multiyear marketing contract with controversial beer brand Bud Light, especially after the massive boycott this year following the partnership with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney. The whole point of doing the boycott was to give Bud Light and its parent company, Anheuser-Busch a swift kick in the junk financially so they wouldn’t fall further down the woke rabbit hole. That work could potentially be undone with this new UFC deal.
According to a report from Newsmax, Clay Travis, who helped establish sports media site OutKick, put Bud Light on full blast, referring to the brand as “dead.”
“Bud Light just spent $100 million on a UFC sponsorship deal to try and cancel out the chicks with d**** ad. No one is drinking Bud Light at any tailgate I’ve been to this fall. Brand is dead,” he said on social media. It’s a crass way of putting it, but that doesn’t make it any less true. This deal is a radical form of damage control being done to try and keep the company afloat after the heavy hits it took back in April and through the summer.
AntEvansMMA also took shots at the $100 million deal, calling it an “expensive lifeline” to save the company.
“As soon as Bud Light destroyed their business with that ghastly stunt earlier this year,” they went on to say concerning the new deal, “I had a feeling it would be a boon for UFC. The first time Bud partnered UFC, it was almost as if they were doing UFC a favor. This time it is UFC selling them a very expensive lifeline.”
Another X user, MuensterJohann, slammed the UFC’s CEO, Dana White, referring to him as “woke UFC globalist” in a brutal post on the platform.
“@ufc I am done watching UFC until they remove that woke Clydesdale p*** @budlight beer, another thing is Bill Gates bought a bunch of this p*** beer stock and as long as UFC is a sponsor of @budlight, I’m done. Bill Gates and Bud Lite are the problem with this country — Dana stop being a woke UFC globalist!” he railed.
Check out more on the deal from Newsmax:
Bud Light parent Anheuser-Busch and UFC on Tuesday announced their multiyear partnership will begin Jan. 1, 2024. It comes on the heels of UFC merging with WWE to form TKO Group Holdings, a newly public traded company.
Anheuser-Busch was previously a UFC partner for many years through 2017, when the franchise signed with Modelo. The union appears to be part of a broader effort to revive Bud Light following its partnership with a transgender influencer in April, which sparked a boycott by its core customers and dethroned Bud Light as America’s top-selling beer.
This is actually going to hurt the UFC more than it’s going to help Bud Light. The primary audience for MMA is men. Sure, some women love the sport, but it’s audience is dudes. Men do not want to support a brand that slapped them in the face by supporting transgenderism and attempting to force them to accept males dressing up as females as actual ladies. Lots of these men will stop tuning into UFC and watch one of its competitors like Bellator or ONE Fighting Championship.
Big mistake, Dana.
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