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Black Rifle Coffee Company consistent with UFC values
The UFC today announced a multi-year marketing partnership with Black Rifle Coffee Company (BRCC), “a rapidly-growing, mission-driven premium coffee company founded to support veterans, active-duty military, and first responders, today announced a new multi-year marketing partnership.”
BRCC “will bring its distinct brand of caffeine-fueled energy to fans at UFC’s biggest U.S. events” (sorry Apex Center).
As I’ve gotten to know the team at Black Rifle Coffee Company, I’ve come to respect how they’ve built their business and the values they stand for,” said UFC and Power Slap CEO Dana White. “Taking care of the men and women who serve this country is something that has always been important to me and an issue I care deeply about. I’m proud to partner with a company like BRCC that is committed to helping veterans and others who have put their lives on the line and sacrificed so much to protect our way of life.”
It might get loud
UFC and BRCC will co-produce a Live Crowd Volume Meter to elevate the fan experience. The Black Rifle Coffee Crowd Meter will be implemented at every UFC arena show in the U.S. and will measure, in decibels, the volume of the crowd. The highest volume at each event will be recorded and posted on UFC social media platforms.
Black Rifle a perfect fit for UFC’s MAGA branding strategy
Since coming under the ownership of Democratic insider Ari Emanuel (whose brother Rahm is Joe Biden’s Ambassador to Japan and was Obama’s Chief of Staff), the UFC has deliberately embraced a strategy of associating itself with former President Donald Trump and other conservative causes.
So of course, Black Rifle is a perfect fit given its mission of “Serving coffee and culture to those who love America.”
Liberal media outlets like The New York Times will likely find plenty to complain about just as they got several headlines out of the Dallas Cowboy’s partnership with BRCC.
That story was quickly followed by a profile piece in The New York Times (The Times has kind of a tradition of publishing puff pieces on extreme right-wingers) in which the owners of the BRCC got much more sympathetic coverage. This ironically led some conservatives to call for the coffee’s cancellation after BRCC CEO Evan Hafer tried to distance himself from certain extremists.
“What I figured out the last couple of years is that being really political, in the sense of backing an individual politician or any individual party, is really [expletive] detrimental. And it’s detrimental to the company. And it’s detrimental, ultimately, to my mission.” Hafer said, “The racism [expletive] really pisses me off. I hate racist, Proud Boy-ish people. Like, I’ll pay them to leave my customer base. I would gladly chop all of those people out of my [expletive] customer database and pay them to get the [expletive] out.”
It’s a total mystery why Black Rifle Coffee attracts extreme right-wingers to their product. I mean what’s not to see about their popular SS or “Silencer Smooth” coffee roast?
There was also this wacky mix up:
Joe Rogan protects them from charges of ‘being woke’
But for some, BRCC’s attempted course correction was too “woke” and there were calls for cancellation.
Fortunately Joe Rogan was there to come to BRCC’s rescue.
Rogan told Hafer, “When people were attacking you I got butthurt. I was like, ‘Come on? Evan?’ Get the f*** out of here.’ I was like, I’ve got to have you on. It was so weird to see cancel culture come from the right. I didn’t know it worked that way. I didn’t know you f****** idiots would do the same thing. What is going on?”
Rogan asked Hafer, “Did it start with the New York Times article? The New York Times article was like, ‘Black Rifle Coffee is the Starbucks of the right,’ is that how they described it?” Hafer said, “Can they be,” and Rogan asked, “What was the negative part of that?” Hafer said, “To rewind, we knew this story was going down months before. I was down in Florida, I was bass fishing with Johnny Morris, who owns Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s … It was me, my business partner Mat, and we get a call, ‘Hey the Times is doing an article on you guys, do you guys want to sit for the interview?’ And we were like f*** you, no.”
UFC’s even bigger deal with Anheiser Busch
This reminds me of the UFC’s deal with troubled beer maker Anheiser Busch. The beverage company triggered a conservative backlash but Dana and the UFC poured oil on the troubled waters by taking a $100 million sponsorship deal and assuring fans the company was made of solid stuff.
“I am a big Military/Law Enforcement guy. They have this, ‘Folds of Honor’ where they’ve spent $44 million over the last however-many years. Fallen first responders and military people, their families get taken care of with this money; scholarships for their kids, etc. That is right up my alley. Almost a billion dollars a year go to US farmers, for their crops, for their products. That is right up my alley, that is exactly who I am. 65,000 Americans are employed by Anheuser-Busch, and thousands of them are vets. Right up my alley.
“And I could keep going on and on forever and tell you why I am more aligned with Anheuser-Busch than any of the other beer companies that were offering to pay us money.”
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