Conor McGregor will arrive at his August boxing match against Floyd Mayweather without a major apparel sponsor, his Reebok endorsement deal having expired sometime in the past six months. The lapse leaves the UFC's highest-grossing pay-per-view athlete—responsible for six of the promotion's top ten buy-rate events—free to sign a fight-week kit agreement with any brand willing to meet his number. No deal has been announced. Fight week is four weeks out.
The Reebok partnership, signed in 2015 alongside the UFC's broader $70 million six-year uniform deal, gave the brand exclusive rights to McGregor's in-cage apparel and training gear across fight camps. That exclusivity ended when the UFC's own Reebok contract expired in March 2021 and the promotion moved to Venum. McGregor's personal Reebok extension ran longer, but the relationship has now concluded without renewal. Neither McGregor's management nor Reebok responded to requests for comment by press time.
The timing creates an unusual optic: McGregor, who generated an estimated $600 million in UFC pay-per-view revenue between 2015 and 2021, will walk into the richest fight in combat sports history wearing... something. Floyd Mayweather, by contrast, has operated sponsor-free for the majority of his career, a choice that let him avoid brand conflicts and negotiate bespoke fight-night deals when the economics justified it. Mayweather wore Hublot for $1 million per fight in his later bouts, but kept his trunks clean and his walkout gear minimal. The model worked because Mayweather controlled his promotional entity and never ceded merchandising rights to a league-wide apparel partner.
McGregor's situation is structurally different. UFC fighters remain bound by the promotion's Venum uniform deal inside the Octagon, a constraint that limits in-competition branding to a handful of approved sponsor patches. The Mayweather fight, however, is a boxing event under Mayweather Promotions, which means McGregor operates outside UFC apparel rules for this one night. That freedom is worth something. Adidas, Under Armour, and Lululemon have all expanded into combat sports apparel in the past 18 months, and a McGregor fight-week deal—covering press conferences, weigh-ins, and ring walk—would deliver an estimated 80 million live impressions across broadcast and digital. A one-fight sponsorship of that scale typically commands $2 million to $4 million, depending on exclusivity terms and social media commitments.
The McGregor camp has not indicated whether they are actively shopping the opportunity or prefer to enter the fight unaffiliated. The latter choice would be unusual for an athlete who built a reported $200 million net worth in part through sponsorship income, but it would also mirror the Mayweather aesthetic: no logos, no obligations, complete control. That posture has brand value of its own, particularly for an athlete whose Proper No. Twelve whiskey brand sold its majority stake to Proximo Spirits in 2021 for a reported $600 million.
Meanwhile, Michael Page—another UFC fighter with exactly one bout remaining on his current contract—told media last week he is seeking a new deal and hopes the promotion prioritizes him. Page signed with the UFC in 2024 after a decade at Bellator, where he headlined multiple pay-per-view cards and carried a career 19-2 record. His comment suggests the UFC is letting some fighter contracts run closer to expiration before offering extensions, a shift from the 2021-2022 window when the promotion signed multi-fight deals with most of its ranked roster ahead of its sale process. Page's next fight is unannounced.
For McGregor, the immediate question is whether he signs an apparel deal in the next ten days—the window when fight-week content begins circulating—or walks into the Mayweather event wearing his own brand's gear, if anything. Either choice will be read as a statement about where his business focus sits: continuing as the UFC's highest-earning active fighter, or transitioning toward the Mayweather model of full promotional independence.
The Mayweather fight is August 26 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. McGregor's next UFC bout, if there is one, has no scheduled date.
The takeaway
McGregor enters his richest fight without an apparel sponsor, creating a **$2-4 million** branding window four weeks before fight week.
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