BKFC has a new, and perhaps aggressive approach to controlling the flow information. They threaten to pay fighters if they announce fights before they become official.
A clause in the standard contract for bare-knuckle promotions, obtained from MMA Fighting prohibits a fighter’s announcement of “any details” about his fight, including date, opponent, and location, until BKFC has made the announcement. Violators of the clause face a “financial penalty” of “10 percent of fighter’s pay and loss of any bonuses the fighter would have been eligible for.”
BKFC President David Feldman told MMA Fighting the clause has yet to be enforced and said it related more to the release of promotional materials such as fight posters and other company products than fight news that is a centerpiece of the combat sports news business and part of the day-to-day coverage of dozens of websites.
“We’re trying to crack down on people coming in over weight, we’re trying to crack down on people not turning medicals in, we’re trying to crack down on a lot of things that are making it hard for us to produce a quality event,” he said.
Feldman stated that the clause was put in place by BKFC’s legal team and matchmaking staff. While he cited an instance in which a pre-announcement had impacted a booking, Feldman stressed that the promotion was not looking to punish fighters for leaky fights.
” I don’t mind taking a dime, but I want to ensure we have the effect on promoting we need,” he stated.
When asked about the clause by MMA Fighting, several veteran MMA promotors were unable to answer. The majority of fight news stories that are not published by the promotion’s announcements about information about fighters is revealed by anonymous sources.
UFC, the industry leader in MMA, has threatened to cancel fighter’s bookings if fights were announced by an unauthorized source. At a fighter’s summit for contractees, the promotion strongly advised fighters to only talk to preferred outlets when discussing fights or news.
Although a financial sanction has not been explicitly linked to leaks in the UFC, fines against fighters who have violated its policies were announced. Nate Diaz who will be fighting Khamzat Chimaev Saturday at UFC 279,, was in 2016 penalized for violating the UFC Outfitting Policy. In 2013,, the promotion announced that he had used an anti-gay slur via social media.
