Tonight at the Clark County Event Center in Ridgefield, Wash., Austin Springer looks to defend his Prime Fighting featherweight title against Julian Erosa in front of, at best, a few thousand people.

If he wants to get noticed by the UFC, and he does, it’s the kind of fight he’d probably better win. But here’s the problem for a pro fighter at the local level who’s trying to make it to the big time: How are you supposed to train full-time like a professional, when you don’t exactly get paid like a professional?

Which is not to say that Springer (8-1) won’t pocket some cash for his title defense. He’s one half of tonight’s main event, and for that he’ll receive $1,500 to show and another $1,500 to win.

It’s not nothing, but with the way expenses can stack up during a training camp, it wouldn’t take much for Springer to eat through his whole paycheck simply preparing to do the part of the job that pays.

“For me,” Springer told MMAjunkie, “that’s where sponsors come in.”

Even before the UFC signed an exclusive apparel deal with Reebok, we heard a lot about the sponsor market drying up in MMA. At one time, UFC fighters could reasonably expect to make more from sponsors than they did in fight purses.

Those days are gone for most fighters at the highest level of the sport, but on smaller shows, Springer has found, there’s still good money to be made if you know how to court local sponsors. And for Springer, hustling for those sponsors is the difference between making a living as a fighter and just scraping by.

“Some of the fights I’ve had, I’m basically relying on selling tickets,” Springer said. “But the goal is to get seen by the UFC, and if you’re only fighting a couple times a year, it’s going to take a long time to get there. So I’ve taken fights where the pay was not great at all, like maybe a couple hundred bucks. So if you want to make some money, you have to do it on ticket sales and sponsorships.”

For his title defense against Erosa, Springer acquired 18 sponsors in all, in part because he wasn’t afraid to get creative in how the deals are structured. For instance, not all of them pay him in cash. There’s a local Max Muscle store that provides him with free supplements in exchange for an exposure. A sensory deprivation spa gives him free floats in its tanks. Sometimes he even seeks out specific sponsors to fulfill his needs in trade.

“If my wife’s car is having problems,” Springer said, “I’ll see if I can sell a sponsorship to a mechanic.”

But there’s also cash involved. For this fight, Springer said, he expects to make a little more than $8,000 – more than twice his show and potential win money – all from sponsors. That’s money that allowed him to hire specialized coaches for this training camp, and to travel down to the Xtreme Couture gym in Las Vegas, both of which he could never have afforded without sponsors.

His single biggest cash sponsor is Jesse Murray, who owns Painting Perfection in La Center, Wash. Murray said he was motivated to sponsor a local fighter only in part because of the marketing boost it might offer his company to have a logo on Springer’s shorts or a plug on his Facebook page.

“I’ve gotten one job out of it so far, and it was a good size job, but I’m not expecting much,” Murray said. “I was interested in funding a guy, and it doesn’t hurt to have some write-off dollars. It can go to the government or it can go to someone trying to better themselves. That’s how I looked at it.”

Springer credited his own experience as a small-business owner – he owns and operates the Elite Martial Arts gym in Vancouver – for helping him craft a winning sales pitch that would appeal to potential sponsors. That approach worked well on Murray, who said he was sold after talking to Springer about how he planned to use the money.

“He told me, ‘Hey, here’s what I need to do to get better,’” Murray said. “And he didn’t pressure me with a sales pitch. He just laid it out. And some of it is, he’s got to be able to afford daycare for his kids when he’s gone training somewhere else.”

That’s the thing many people may not realize about the life of a pro fighter, Springer said. All the work that goes into preparing for a fight means time away from something else, whether it’s family or a paying job or just another day-to-day responsibility.

“Those sponsorships play a huge role in allowing me to do what I need to do to improve,” Springer said.

Now he just has to hope it shows up in the cage – and that the UFC notices.