When a High Court jury found against Conor McGregor in his civil rape case last week, the Hollywood Reporter jumped on the story of his legal woes. The coverage in the US film industry’s go-to news publication was as big a sign as any of McGregor’s seemingly unstoppable journey into the ritzy world of entertainment from the bloodied mixed martial arts octagon.
Now he is counting the cost of what he did on that December 2018 day in the penthouse suite of the Beacon Hotel in Sandyford, south Dublin. His potential losses in the fallout from the case are enormous.
This was shaping up to a big year for McGregor. But that was before Nikita Hand told a believing jury of a terrifying sexual assault by a professional fighter who “would not take no for an answer”.
The Dublin woman was awarded nearly €250,000 in damages after the jury found that she was raped by McGregor in the Dublin hotel in December 2018.
McGregor (36) owns three Dublin pubs: the Black Forge Inn and the Marble Arch in Drimnagh, and the Waterside in Howth, where plans for a boutique hotel were rejected by Fingal County Council. But he always wanted to stride on a bigger stage – and did so with alacrity.
He made his Hollywood debut in March, starring in the move Road House with A-list actor Jake Gyllenhaal. In June he struck a new deal to use his image in the Hitman video game, a global franchise. He continued to promote Proper No. Twelve, the whiskey brand he sold three years ago for $130 million (€123 million) and was on a drive to create international markets for his Forged Stout brand.
The sales slogan said much about his ambition for the new brew: “Better watch out, because we’re not here to take part, we’re here to take over.”
It echoes McGregor’s famous line from his post-fight octagon interview at UFC Fight Night Dublin in 2014, when he was at the vanguard of a number of Irish fighters appearing on the promotion.
Now it is events that have taken over, threatening an empire that traded on McGregor’s ability to connect directly with a certain cohort of young men with an almost cult-like appeal.
Ms Hand’s account of how McGregor “brutally raped and battered her” has dealt a crippling blow to his earning power. Retailers are taking McGregor drink from their shelves – and his image has been pulled from whiskey marketing and video games. His childhood soccer team in Crumlin, Lourdes Celtic, is said locally to be removing his name from players’ kit but the club itself did not reply to questions. Even the National Wax Museum has removed his sculpture.
Forged Stout was sold in off-licences and supermarkets and a relatively small number of pubs so the delisting inflicts financial pain. However, for the McGregor brand the real money was in the US. There could be serious implications there too.
“Financially, and then [in terms of] future revenue generating, it’s very damaging for him,” said Prof Norm O’Reilly, author of 20 books on sports sponsorship and dean of the University of New England business school. “I would say for most brands this is now like a hands-off, certainly in the very short term. It doesn’t look good. It’s about images. Image transfer is the core of why sponsorship works.
He added: “If you and I own a company and we’re trying to be a little edgy, he’s no longer our choice, right?”
There are “many other athletes out there who have a bit of edge” but who haven’t “done something like this to women”, said Prof O’Reilly.
McGregor was in full plumage when he claimed to be “the highest-paid first-time actor of all time” for his villain role in Road House, an action thriller remake of a 1980s blockbuster that starred the late Patrick Swayze. He is said to have received $5 million for the role, prompting his claim to have been paid more than wrestler-turned Hollywood star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson when he burst on to the screen decades ago.
How Nikita Hand won her battle against Conor McGregor
Nikita Hand has won her civil case against MMA fighter Conor McGregor. The 35 year-old Dublin woman alleged he raped her in the penthouse suite of The Beacon Hotel in December 2018. The jury, believing her account of assault, found in her favour; returning a verdict yesterday evening after six hours of deliberations. McGregor has been ordered to pay Ms. Hand almost €250,000 in damages. But why has the UFC fighter not been found guilty of rape? How has Ms. Hand successfully sued him in the High Court? And what did the jury hear to persuade them she was the one telling the truth. Frank Greaney is courts correspondent for the Bauer Media group, which owns radio stations including Newstalk and TodayFM. He explains how Nikita Hand faced down McGregor at great personal cost. Please be advised this episode contains details of sexual assault, which some listeners may find distressing.Produced and presented by Aideen Finnegan.
Johnson is now a superstar. Any hopes of McGregor to follow him or Arnold Schwarzenegger, the bodybuilder-turned movie star-turned politician, must be measured against the jury’s verdict.
Despite the boycott, Road House remains on Amazon Prime’s streaming service. The company had nothing to say about McGregor. “We’re not offering any comment,” Amazon Prime said.
McGregor’s Hollywood agent, Audie Attar, did not reply to questions. Similarly, his London-based spokeswoman did not respond to queries. These included the question of whether McGregor was contractually bound to repay fees in the event of adverse court findings.
“Those are pretty common in contracts now if this [behaviour] is over a line that the brands wanted,” Prof O’Reilly said.
The business meltdown started on Monday when IO Interactive, Danish owner of the Hitman gaming franchise, cut ties with the fighter.
“In light of the recent court ruling regarding Conor McGregor, IO Interactive has made the decision to cease its collaboration with the athlete, effective immediately,” the company said.
“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.”
IO Interactive did not respond to further questions.
Yet it is clear the company had high hopes for a Hitman game with a “mysterious Disruptor featuring global superstar Conor McGregor”.
At the time IO Interactive said it was “beyond thrilled” to work with the fighter, citing his “raw charisma and energy”. McGregor said he had “a lot of fun creating the character and bringing him to life”.
All of that has now ended.
The Irish response was less immediate, coming two days after Rape Crisis Network Ireland urged retailers to stop selling McGregor stout and the whiskey brand he sold to Mexican group Proximo Spirits in 2021.
But the dam broke just before lunchtime on Tuesday when Barry Group, owner of Costcutter stores and Carry Out off-licences, became the first to drop Forged Irish Stout and Proper No. Twelve Whiskey, saying: “This action reflects our commitment to maintaining a retail environment that resonates with the values of our customers and partners.”
Musgrave, owner of the Supervalu and Centra chains, quickly followed. So too did wholesaler BWG, saying it will no longer distribute McGregor-linked brands to Spar, Eurospar, Mace, Londis and XL stores. BWG’s decision removed product from 1,000 outlets. Bigger still was Tesco’s move to delist McGregor brands from more than 4,200 Irish and UK stores and its online shop.
Then came the response of Proximo, the Mexican owner of Bushmills Irish whiskey and Tequila which made a big bet on Proper No. Twelve in 2021: “Going forward, we do not plan to use Mr McGregor’s name and likeness in the marketing of the brand.” The properwhiskey.com website was soon offline.
The bad news kept coming.
Retailer Asda dropped Forged Stout from 500 UK stores on Thursday. Pub chain JD Wetherspoon cut the product from seven Irish pubs. Off-licence chain O’Brien’s cut both stout and whiskey, as did State airport group DAA.
Manchester-based LWC, the UK’s largest independent drinks wholesaler, also cut ties with McGregor, saying it had taken the “necessary legal steps” to end distribution of his stout.
[ From the very start Conor McGregor was telling us and showing us who he wasOpens in new window ]
“We are consulting with our customers to support them in the replacement of Forged draught taps. LWC does not want to be associated with Conor McGregor or Forged Irish Stout.”
The irony is that McGregor’s “notorious” image once gave business something akin to a golden ticket into the world of young men. Research in 2016 by a sports consultancy then known PSG Sponsorship showed he was the athlete most admired by almost one-in-three Irish people aged 18-34. He was less popular with older people.
But the nationwide poll of 1,000 people reflected McGregor’s meteoric rise, placing him ahead of boxer Katie Taylor, rowers Gary and Paul O’Donovan, jockey Ruby Walsh, rugby star Johnny Sexton and soccer player Robbie Keane. He was sixth most popular only two years earlier.
Although this carried immense business appeal, the accounts of McGregor’s main Dublin company give little insight into his overall fortune. Abridged financial statements filed on Monday for McGregor Sports and Entertainment Ltd show profits fell in 2023 to €194,297 from €528,263 the previous year, with accumulated profits at €506,475.
No longer is the image positive, it’s negative ... now the brand senses a problem
— Prof Norm O'Reilly
McGregor’s returns from the $130 million Proximo deal and the $100 million he reportedly received for a Las Vegas boxing defeat in 2017 to Floyd Mayweather seem to be elsewhere.
The money came on top of the tens of millions of dollars he earned from his UFC fight career. Business magazine Forbes listed him as the world’s highest-paid athlete in 2021, behind football stars Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, with salary/winnings of $22 million and endorsements of $158 million.
For as long as it lasted, business was fully behind McGregor’s macho personality.
“Only a very, very few athletes have properties that reach the kind of markets he does,” said Prof O’Reilly. “He’s kind of on the edge but he’s never really gone over the edge.”
That changed with the High Court verdict, no matter that these were civil and not criminal proceedings.
“So, no longer is the image positive, it’s negative. So now the brand senses a problem,” said Prof O’Reilly.
Right now, McGregor is short on supporters. But one man who has leapt to his defence is Roger Stone, acolyte of incoming US president Donald Trump and a Republican Party activist going back to the time of Richard Nixon.
In a bizarre claim, Stone contended in a message to McGregor on X that the allegations against him stemmed from the fighter “telling the truth about how they are trying to destroy free speech in your country”.
“Don’t give up. Keep fighting for the Ireland you love. God bless you,” Stone told him in the social media post.
Stone’s intervention was in line with dismissive response of the Make America Great Again movement to court findings against Trump.
Still, this was a world away from the mass-market allure that McGregor cultivated. Only weeks have passed since a Netflix boxing match yielded a $20 million pay-day for Mike Tyson, who served a prison term for rape in 1990s. Asked whether this showed McGregor could find a way back, Prof O’Reilly said Tyson’s appeal was at the box office, not in sponsorship. Mixed martial arts sponsors may stay with McGregor but “they’re very small”, he said. The bigger potential loss was from sponsors not directly linked to fighting.
Citing Tiger Woods’ loss of non-golf sponsors after the exposure of his marital infidelity, Prof O’Reilly said: “It’s literally cost him hundreds of millions of dollars.”
McGregor will appeal the court findings but the strain on his business interests could hardly be greater.
- Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
- Join The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
- Listen to our Inside Politics podcast for the best political chat and analysis
