UFC strawweight contender Mackenzie Dern faced an unexpected career setback when she announced her pregnancy in 2018. The Brazilian-American MMA star revealed that several sponsors dropped her immediately after learning she was expecting, despite her assurances that she planned to return to competition.
“I kind of thought that who was signed like who I was signed with at the time. It was kind of like I was an ambassador for, you know, a couple of these brands,”
Dern explained during a recent interview.
“So, I was kind of a little bit surprised because I kind of thought, you know, like fighters get injuries, you know, not that being pregnant is injury, but um you know, when I told them like, ‘Hey, I’m gonna still fight.’ I thought that that’d kind of be like, ‘Okay, then we’ll wait until you get back into it.'”
The business decision from sponsors came as a partial surprise to the jiu-jitsu world champion, though she understood their perspective.
“I understand from the business aspect, you know, I wouldn’t be really promoting as much, I guess, for what they wanted at the time,”
she said.
“And then also too, I think just they didn’t 100% believe me that I would come back, you know. So I think they thought like, okay, well let’s invest our money in other places right now and then if she does come back, we can come back to that.”
The financial impact extended beyond just losing sponsorship deals. Dern also experienced a significant drop in her social media following, losing approximately 70,000 followers in the first week after announcing her pregnancy. The reaction from fans was often harsh and dismissive.
“A lot of people just saying like, oh, her career is over and well that’s it, you know, like go be a stay at home mom. And kind of like that kind of stuff, you know, just like well we’re on to the next kind of thing,”
Dern recalled. Many followers simply unfollowed without engaging, while others left negative comments suggesting her competitive career was finished.
Despite the setbacks, Dern maintained her determination to return. True to her word, she made her comeback just four months after giving birth to her daughter Moa, though she now admits the timeline was perhaps too aggressive.
“I mean, it didn’t surprise me then, but now I’m I’m I think I was totally crazy, you know, like now I can’t believe what I did,”
she reflected.
The experience ultimately filtered her fanbase in a positive way.
“It filtered out a lot of my followers, you know, was a lot of I got like a lot more like moms and women and like even the guys that did follow me, you could tell that they like really I don’t know just like enjoyed me from the jiu-jitsu community,”
Dern explained. Many of the original followers who left eventually returned once they saw her successful return to competition.
Dern‘s story highlights the unique challenges female athletes face when balancing motherhood with professional sports careers. Her experience with sponsor abandonment during pregnancy reflects broader issues in sports business, where companies often prioritize immediate promotional value over long-term athlete relationships.
Today, Dern continues to compete at the highest level in the UFC while raising her daughter, who regularly accompanies her to training sessions. Her journey from losing sponsors during pregnancy to becoming a top-ranked strawweight demonstrates the resilience required of female athletes who refuse to let motherhood end their competitive careers.
