Bud Light Continues Rehabilitation Tour With Shane Gillis Partnership, And America Should Expect More

Conservative critics accused Dana White and the UFC of selling out late in 2023 after signing a $100 million sponsorship deal to make Bud Light the official beer of the promotion.

The UFC did not sell out. Bud Light sold out.

Last March, the beer company triggered a backlash among a crowd of Americans after partnering with Dylan Mulvaney, honoring his "365 Days of Girlhood."

It turns out that the crowd of Americans who don't consider it honorable to wear the female gender like a mask is quite large. 

The commemorative can featuring Mulvaney's face had, at one point, cost Anheuser-Busch $27 billion in market value. 

The partnership cost Bud Light its standing as the top beer company in the world for the first time in 22 years.

So what did the company do?

It sold out and dismissed its pledge to be less "fratty" and more progressive by signing a sponsorship deal with the one major sports league that aligns politically with the consumers who stopped drinking Bud Light on account of its partnership with Mulvaney.

If any figure in sports can make Bud Light Cool Again, it’d be Dana White.

For the same reasons, Bud Light signed a partnership deal with comedian Shane Gillis this week. 

Gillis, like the UFC, is a political outlier in his industry. He speaks to middle and red America. He doesn’t fear cancel culture. He’s already been canceled.

Shane Gillis landed his dream job with "Saturday Night Live" in 2019. However, the show fired him five days later due to an organized smear campaign over old clips in which Gillis mocked Asian accents and gay people.

He has since emerged as a comedic favorite among conservatives.

Bud Light understands he is one of the few comedians who can help mend the fences between the brand and its former consumers. 

OutKick writer David Hookstead agrees.

"This is honestly a genius decision from Bud Light, and it's one of the few smart decisions the beer company has made over the past several years," says Hookstead.

"Shane Gillis loves to crush beer. He's not shy about it. The man loves a cold brew, and he also appeals to people who aren't politically correct."

Dana White praises Donald Trump's presence at UFC events. (Matias J. Ocner/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

Consider Bud Light's deals with Gillis and the UFC as part of a rehabilitation tour. 

Anheuser-Busch learned in 2023 that the consumers do not answer to them, but that the company answers to the consumer.

The average, ordinary American demonstrated they still control the marketplace.

Thus, Bud Light is trying to earn back their support by dishing out uncomfortably high sponsorship deals with the very people the company dismissed a year ago.

The common man who enjoys a cold one forced Bud Light to sell out. The UFC and Shane Gillis are the beneficiaries. 

Expect there to be more.