Conor McGregor’s ties with New York-listed MMA firm face uncertainty

Senior management at a New York-listed mixed-martial arts training company in which Conor McGregor is a big shareholder have refused to say whether he will continue as its brand ambassador.
The Irish Times contacted Nick Langton, the chief executive of Alta Global, whose shares trade on the NYSE American exchange, to ask if the company intended to continue with its relationship with McGregor.
Companies and brands have been distancing themselves from McGregor over the past week since a jury in a civil action taken by Nikita Hand found that he raped her in a Dublin hotel in 2018.
McGregor was ordered to pay Ms Hand €248,603 in damages. McGregor has denied raping Ms Hand, and said he will appeal the decision.
Alta Global has to date declined to make any comment on the matter. Mr Langton did not respond to a message through LinkedIn, while the company’s chief marketing officer, Peter Jarmain, declined to respond to an email and a LinkedIn message.
The Irish Times also contacted a US company that handles investor relations and media queries for Alta Global. A representative of the company, called RedChip, said “I don’t answer questions related to Conor McGregor,” before hanging up.
Alta Global was founded in Australia, and one of its co-founders is John Kavanagh, McGregor’s coach. It started as a mixed martial arts training company there, before expanding through a number of acquisitions.
In its current form it aims to sell an MMA training programme to amateurs and people looking for exercise programmes, both through a network of partner gyms and through its online and social media platforms.
Alta Global has relationships with several gyms in Ireland. According to its website, it is connected to gyms in Clonmel, Cork, Dublin, Louth, Naas and Wexford, three of which are part of John Kavanagh’s Straight Blast Gyms chain.
McGregor is a shareholder in the company and in September he was granted bonus shares that could potentially be worth as much as $14 million (€13.3 million) as part of a three-year brand ambassador deal.
In a stock exchange filing, the company said that McGregor could potentially receive 700,000 performance share awards in the company, which will be tied to his ability to boost the company’s share price.
The bonus scheme was based on McGregor’s ability to use his reputation to help the company hit certain share price targets and Langton described his involvement as “a game changer for Alta Global Group”.
However, since the result of Ms Hand’s civil action against McGregor, brands and companies have been rushing to distance themselves from him.
His Proper No 12 whiskey brand has been removed from shelves in potentially more than 1,000 outlets across Ireland as part of a growing boycott of any products associated with him, including by the BWG group, Musgraves and Tesco.
His Forged Irish Stout brand will also be removed from the shelves of some retail outlets. The Barry Group, which operates the Costcutter stores and Carry Out off-licences, saying that “this action reflects our commitment to maintaining a retail environment that resonates with the values of our customers and partners”.
Accounts just published for a number of companies behind Forged Irish Stout show combined losses of more than €9 million in 2023.
Meanwhile Proximo Spirits, the Mexican-owned spirits company that bought Proper No Twelve from McGregor in 2021, said it would stop using his name and likeness in the marketing of the whiskey.
Outside of the drinks industry, other companies have ended their association with McGregor, too. Earlier this week a computer game maker called IO Interactive, developer of a video game series called Hitman, said it would be ending its collaboration with McGregor. It said in a statement, “We take this matter very seriously and cannot ignore its implications. Consequently, we will begin removing all content featuring Mr McGregor from our storefronts starting today.”