UFC Lobbyists – Who Will Be Waiting in the “Lobby” ?
Published by Charles Jay on June 25th, 2008 in Operation Cleanup

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Commentary on MMA history…as it’s happening

The UFC, which has put its tentacles into legislatures on the state level, is now entering the battlefield on a national basis. They have hired a Washington lobbying firm, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, in order to state their case on the Hill.

This reflects on something I was telling my buddy Zach Arnold a long time ago; that sooner or later, there were going to be louder noises about national regulation coming from the various states, funneled through something called the ABC – the Association of Boxing Commissions – a trade association which is just that, an association of nearly every boxing commission in the country. And if you’ve paid attention, you know that these boxing commissions, which sometimes come by another name, such as an “athletic commission” or in the case of Michigan, an “unarmed combat commission,” are chiefly enlisted to regulate boxing. They have boxing people in control, and have often seen the sport of mixed martial arts through that prism. Since they are generally products of government bureaucracy, they are embedded in a culture that encourages more and more regulation, not to mention one of political patronage, so you can bet that in this atmosphere, there is always going to be the possibility of those in control using the power granted by the state to influence things in the favor of one entity or another.

To be fair and balanced about this thing, the UFC has been perfectly willing to play that “game” to its advantage within states, as some of its lobbyists, whether on the national level or the local level, have been able to freeze out a promoter or two, sometimes by virtue of the very laws that are able to pass in the legislature, or some careful “nudging” of state officials to impose sanctions upon promoters that may or may not even be legal. That is something you can be assured we’re going to examine here in the coming days, but the point is that they are light years ahead of their competitors in this regard. I know something about how boxing regulation works, perhaps as much as any writer ever has in the United States, and if you care to Google “Charles Jay Operation Cleanup” you can partake in as much of its 800-plus pages as you can dig up; that is, if you are so inclined.

MMA is going to become a political football.

This comes from the UFC press release:

“UFC is at the point where they are one of the fastest-growing sports leagues, and we want to make sure members of Congress are aware of the changes MMA has undergone,” said Makan Delrahim, a former top Justice Department official who is now a lobbyist at Brownstein Hyatt.

Well, that lobbyist is behind the eight-ball already. Because guess what? They could care less what changes MMA has undergone. In fact, the “changes” the sport has undertaken actually make it a MORE attractive target for people who are of the mindset to regulate anything that walks, simply because they see more money in it. When you look at the summaries surrounding the establishment of the new commission in Michigan that included provisions for MMA, for example, there was hardly a word about how much safer regulation would make the sport, but rather, how much money could be realized from it. Comparisons were made with the neighboring state of Ohio, which has hosted UFC events.

You see, it’s not about what good little boys the UFC have been by tidying up their act. It’s about how much THEY can profit off it.

And so there is going to be a move to include mixed martial arts not only in the existing legislation that involves boxing, the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, as well as an effort to resurrect the Professional Boxing Amendments Act to encompass mixed martial arts as well. If John McCain is elected president, he may have other things on his mind, but if he pushes for this bill, it might have a better shot at passing. That would be something to worry about. Thus far every incarnation of his legislation has failed (in fact, I have been part of those efforts to defeat it), and in large measure, there was the heavy participation of lobbyists who were retained by the International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Association.

I must say that I fall on the side of the UFC and their lobbying efforts in this specific case. What was written last week on MMAPayout was true, in that “Inclusion of the UFC under the two aforementioned boxing reform acts would basically turn the standard UFC fighter contract on it’s ear.” But unlike boxing, the sport of MMA has not done a half-bad job at self-regulation, and besides, if there is a restraint of trade in a UFC contract, that is certainly something that can be contested through the civil courts. Taxpayers don’t need to foot the bill to protect fighters, do they?

As we often say, stay tuned. Now these guys are really in my wheelhouse.

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