Conor McGregor Faces Public Backlash and Business Repercussions Following Civil Assault Verdict

“The fight game awaits!” Conor McGregor announced to his millions of social media followers on Tuesday, concurrently with retailers removing his associated products from shelves, murals depicting him being painted over, and brands declaring the termination of their partnerships. This situation arose after a 12-person jury in Dublin found McGregor liable for sexual assault in a civil case brought by Nikita Hand, who accused him of raping her at a Dublin hotel in December 2018. She was awarded nearly €250,000 (£208,000) in damages. In a social media post, McGregor stated he would appeal the decision. Ms Hand’s case was one of several legal issues and controversies that McGregor, one of Ireland’s most famous athletes, has encountered over the past few years. In 2018, he was arrested in New York for throwing a metal dolly at the window of a bus carrying Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) staff and athletes. A year later, he was convicted and fined €1,000 (£850) for punching a man who declined his offer of a drink in a Dublin pub. Some commentators suggest that support for McGregor within Ireland, where he had been regarded as a trailblazer, has been declining for some time – but the shift after Ms Hand’s civil case was monumental. Within a week, hundreds of supermarkets in both the UK and Ireland withdrew brands linked to him. Proximo Spirits, the company that purchased McGregor’s Proper No Twelve whiskey brand in 2021, stated it did not intend to use his name or likeness in its marketing moving forward. IO Interactive, the creators of the Hitman video game, announced it would end its collaboration with McGregor in light of the court ruling. Ireland’s National Wax Museum also confirmed it had removed its figure of McGregor two weeks prior. He built his brand on his patriotism and bold personality. However, the controversies surrounding him have alienated some former supporters and increasingly diverted attention from his career. Petesy Carroll, a mixed martial arts (MMA) journalist, credits McGregor and his team for introducing MMA to Ireland, but says they have “also destroyed it as a sport here”. Now, following the civil case, the future is uncertain. McGregor’s ascent to sporting stardom has often been characterized as a rags-to-riches narrative. As a teenager, living in Lucan, Dublin, he left his job as an apprentice plumber to pursue a career in a sport that was relatively unknown in Ireland. “The Irish mentality is when you’re finished school, if you’re not going to college or anything you need to get a job straight away. There’s no chasing your dreams,” he said in a 2013 interview with RTÉ’s Late Late Show, where he was 24 years old and almost unrecognisable. The brash, confident, boisterous traits his “notorious” brand is now synonymous with were untraceable. “I thought I could do something with my life. I knew I had the ability to make it in this game,” he said. Carroll, who has been covering McGregor since the beginning of his career, says McGregor burst on to the mainstream at a time when Ireland was grappling with the impact of the 2008 recession. “There are no opportunities, everybody’s leaving for Australia or Canada, and here’s this guy saying ‘No, be proud to be Irish. It’s cool to be Irish,’” Carroll says. “I used to think this guy, it’s great, he’s the same age as me, I’m a college graduate, I’ve walked out of college into a country that cannot afford me any opportunity, and here’s this guy blazing a trail.” McGregor made his UFC debut in Stockholm in 2013, aged 25, defeating Marcus Brimage and earning a knockout of the night award, which included a $60,000 bonus. In a press conference after the event, McGregor said it was the best moment of his career yet. “I didn’t have money before this,” he said, “I was collecting €188-a-week off the social welfare, and now here I am with a 60 G’s bonus and then my own pay.” Carroll says money changed McGregor’s life “to the point that everyone stopped treating him like a human”. “Everyone panders to him,” he adds. In 2015, McGregor defeated Chad Mendes in the interim featherweight championship. The bout attracted a sold-out crowd of more than 16,000 at an arena in Las Vegas. “People don’t give him credit,” Luke Keeler, a professional boxer from Dublin, says of the win. “It was a huge impact that he made. He was dedicated and had great belief at the time.” By then, it was evident his fame – and bank account – were reaching new heights. One of the biggest moments in his career came later that year, when he defeated José Aldo to win the featherweight title. His first loss was against Nate Diaz in 2016. A rematch a few months later, which McGregor won, sold a record-breaking 1.6 million pay-per-view buys. That year, on the US chat show Jimmy Kimmel Live, McGregor was asked at what age he realised he was good at fighting. “I’m Irish, we’re all good at fighting,” he told Kimmel. “Where I come from, where I grew up, you had to be aware, you had to be able to defend yourself, so that’s how I got into it.” Back on home soil, McGregor was named Sportsperson of the Year at the RTÉ Sport Awards. Sinéad O’Carroll, an Irish journalist and editor who covered the recent trial, says this was seen as a “remarkable feat