Reports from yesterday revealed that Affliction was possibly behind the rumored deal that would bring former UFC heavyweight Tim Sylvia and PRIDE Heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko together at the American Airlines Arena on July 19th. Affliction is a well known brand of MMA clothing that produces street clothes than litter most MMA broadcasts. Now, it looks as if the clothing brand will make its way into the actual business of creating MMA events.

Unfortunately, this could be their very last. Adam Swift at MMAPayout.com reported some unconfirmed rumors regarding Affliction’s role in the matchup:

MMAPayout.com has received multiple unconfirmed reports of an offer worth slightly more than $2 million per fight from Affliction to Emelianenko. Sylvia is under contract to Adrenaline, the successor to M-1 Global which dissolved last month after parting ways with Fedor.

Interestingly enough, the event will mix in three different promotions. Affliction and M-1 Global will co-promote with each other on this event while HDNet Fights will indirectly have a connection due to the use of American Airlines Arena, a television deal on HDNet, and of course the connection between the actual fight promotion and HDNet itself.

There is one glaring problem that can be seen by nearly any fan reading that quote. If this rumor ends up being true, how can Affliction blow over $2 million dollars on one fighter on the card? Sylvia alone was reported to grab nearly $300,000 per fight from Adrenaline, but that number may be only for Adrenaline MMA cards only. Regardless, Sylvia will get a substantial amount of money, not to mention the undercard fighters that will also get paid.

Unless by some miracle that Mark Cuban has a brain fart at the day of negotiations and somehow gives Affliction huge money to televise the fights, I don’t see how Affliction can possibly make a profit on this event. Sylvia is not a drawing power and neither is Fedor. HDNet isn’t available in every home, and it’s a subscription service that some people are simply not going to pay for just to see one fight.

Affliction must know something we don’t because it seems completely illogical from our standpoint as observers to believe that they could make a profit from this show. Their intention could be to come out with a bang to produce hype around the new promotion, but I think they are underestimating the amount of losses that they could see.

I guess we’ll find out in the coming months what Affliction has up their sleeves. It should be interesting to see if these rumors are true.