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MMA News
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UFC
UFC NEWS: More mainstream acceptance for UFC in the form of a Nike sponsorship for Rampage Jackson
By Wade Keller, Torch editor
Mar 4, 2008, 19:43
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Sherdog.com reports this afternoon that Quinton "Rampage" Jackson will be filming a Nike commercial dubbed "Human Chain" this weekend. LeBron James will be among the star athletes at the shoot. Randy Couture had previously been featured in a Nike ad.
Notes the article: "News of 'Human Chain' piggybacks the historic announcements of CBS agreeing to air mixed martial arts produced by EliteXC in primetime and Bud Light becoming the first blue-chip company to align itself with the sport when it signed a three-year sponsorship deal with the UFC."
SOURCE LINK: Sherdog Report
KELLER ANALYSIS: Rampage's personality, as Pride fans know, has been greatly underutilized by UFC. UFC tends to promote one or two fights ahead, and fighters who aren't scheduled for a big fight within the next three fights tend to become invisible other than an occasional ringside shot or cornering another fighter. Dana White also seems to want to keep the UFC brand the primary selling point of the sport, with specific fight match-ups second, and fighters themselves a distant third. Situations with Jens Pulver, Tito Ortiz, B.J. Penn, and Randy Couture, among others over the years, have soured him on pushing fighters ahead of the brand. All of that said, any UFC fighter that appears in Nike ads is the type of mainstream exposure that can help chip away at a mainstream bias against MMA as some fringe, cult sport.
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