{"id":123219,"date":"2014-12-19T12:37:18","date_gmt":"2014-12-19T20:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=123219"},"modified":"2022-02-04T20:00:52","modified_gmt":"2022-02-05T04:00:52","slug":"heun-speaks-ufc-sponsor-tax-cost-thousands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/ufcnews\/heun-speaks-ufc-sponsor-tax-cost-thousands\/","title":{"rendered":"Heun Speaks Out On UFC Sponsor Tax That Cost Him Thousands"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"COnor<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2010 ZUFFA LLC implemented a layer of protection for fighters in order to help weed out sponsors who lacked a real ability to pay.<\/p>\n

It was dubbed “The Sponsor Tax”. Basically, without getting into too much detail, any company wishing to sponsor a fighter inside the Octagon would first have to pay ZUFFA a fee. This ability to pay was supposed to help fighters, who would otherwise be allowed to work with smaller, sometimes shady companies, who would often stiff their athletes after being promoted on TV.<\/p>\n

A Strikeforce fighter, who experienced the UFC takeover, and fought once under the UFC banner, Conor Heun, just came out with his personal experience with this policy.<\/p>\n

And it wasn’t good…<\/p>\n

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In 2010 before the Zuffa Sponsor tax, I was making 16k from sponsors per fight. My dollars dropped to less that 3k per fight post Zuffa tax.<\/p>\n

— Conor \u201cHurricane\u201d Heun (@ConorHeun) December 3, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n