Krause Lost $20K On UFC’s News Reebok Deal

Popular UFC lightweight James Krause is speaking out against the UFC’s new uniform deal, stating he’s at a loss of income since the UFC’s announcement.

Krause stated in a recent interview that as soon as the UFC announced their new deal with Reebok he lost $20,000.00 in sponsorship.

The fighter continued to discuss the topic with MMAFighting.com:

“The window that we as professional athletes have, especially at the high level and especially in the UFC, is very small. Hell, for all I know, this could be my last fight in the UFC. You don’t know that. You never know. So you have to be prepared for everything. In the NFL, you have contracts and stuff like that. In the UFC, our contracts don’t mean s— For us, anyway. For them, they do. There’s no security behind it.”

“You just never know what’s gonna happen. What if I break my leg and can’t fight for a year? I have no money to raise her. I have to create monthly, recurring income. It seems if your only job is the UFC, especially now after the Reebok deal, it just seems impossible to get that. Maybe not impossible — very, very difficult.”

“I definitely don’t want to act like I’m underpaid, because I’ve never made this much money in my life. So, I’m not trying to bitch and complain about pay. However, I am trying to bitch and complain. I don’t know the answer.”

“It’s tough for me to watch a field-goal kicker that sits on the bench the entire game, maybe not even a first-string kicker, make the league minimum of what*, a year? He gets paid that no matter what. If I get hurt, if I break my hand and I can’t fight in six or eight months, I don’t get paid.”

“If you put Jon Jones, Anderson Silva, Conor McGregor, Ronda Rousey, if those four said, ‘Look, we’re done,’ I think it would change. But the UFC takes so good care of that tier, why would they ever say anything? They take care of their stars, for sure. Those guys aren’t hurting for money at all.”

“I’ll be damned if I get cut one day, and I’m just sitting there with empty hands saying, ‘What’s next?’ That doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t want to be a guy that’s 35 years old, fighting to keep my life going.”