The mixed martial arts promotion UFC has enhanced its global partnership with health and wellness solutions firm Thorne.
Already the promotion’s official sports performance nutrition partner and an official partner of the UFC’s Performance Institute training center, Thorne will now also serve as the premier partner of the UFC’s anti-doping program.
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Through this, Thorne’s range of products will continue to be utilized by UFC dieticians and coaches for use by athletes at the performance institute.
As part of the expansion to cover the UFC’s anti-doping program, Thorne and UFC will collaborate on co-branded content surrounding “clean test milestones” that will be disseminated across UFC’s social media and digital channels.
Thorne first partnered with UFC in 2019, renewed in 2022, and has sponsorship inventory across the promotion that includes presenting partnership placement for select segments of the promotion’s ‘Embedded’ documentary series, as well as a brand ambassadorship program and will now gain several key branding integrations across UFC operations, including on the “locker room cam” broadcast segments during UFC cards.
The UFC anti-doping program has been a contentious point for the promotion since 2023, when it divested from the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), allowing its contract with the body to expire on January 1, 2024.
USADA chief executive Travis Tygart stated that the UFC “did an about-face” in contract negotiations and would be going in a different direction, driven by the situation regarding the status of Irish fighter Conor McGregor.
McGregor is an icon of the sport and is angling for a return to the octagon, however, his re-entry into the USADA testing pool, announced on October 11, 2023, would require him to wait six months and submit two clean drugs tests before he can fight again.
Since then it has been over a year and although McGregor came close to fighting in June 2024, pulling out of a fight against Michael Chandler due to injury, he still has yet to end his four-year break from the sport.
Given the constant controversy surrounding his personal life (he was found to have committed rape in a 2024 trial among other allegations), it is widely considered improbable he will return to the sport, a major blow to UFC given he was considered worth terminating its USAD relationship over.
