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Report: MMA legislation gets knocked out in New York
By Zach Arnold | June 29, 2010
Ultimate fighting in New York looks like longshot after Assembly move
In short, New York’s state senate approved for legislation in their budget bill. In the state Assembly, the Democrats there stripped the provision out of their budget bill. Meaning, when a final bill is voted on, it appears very unlikely any sort of legislation for Mixed Martial Arts will be voted upon.
Zuffa spent a lot of money on lobbying to get this passed and now it appears they are frozen out.
I tried to find the provision stripped from the bill on the New York State Assembly web site but couldn’t.
It also should be noted that the track record that the Fertittas have against unions is not helpful to their cause at all in New York politics. They have had issues with unions on a local and national level.
Las Vegas Review-Journal: Union adding to complaint against Station Casinos
That article details how the Culinary union filed a complaint right after the National Labor Relations Board charged Station Casinos with 127 counts of unfair labor practices. The reported date of the NLRB meeting is August 16th. The Culinary Workers Union and Bartenders Union is claiming that Station Casinos is targeting Latino workers with ‘illegal activities.’
The Associated Press: Union backing Station Casinos organization push
I don’t think their anti-union stance was that key this time around. UFC relied on some fancy p.r. firm that did nothing, while Strikeforce and Bellator ignored the issue. There is still a lot of anti-mma sentiment in NY, mostly based on ignorance, prejudice, and stupidity, but the behavior of White and shows like TUF only hurt. When word gets around about the SC death yesterday, expect even more trouble here. That said, there will be a new governor in January, so it will start again. The MMA World Expo in November at the Javits Center is being co-promoted by Madison Square Garden.
Jonathan Snowden: Fertitta Owned Casino’s Federal Indictment may quell thoughts of UFC union
Topics: Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 8 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Meh.
I was never really understood trying to force a nice thing on people.
Zach does the same guy(Bob something I think) who was the main opponent of MMA in the assembly still have a seat in it?
Ed. — Bob Reilly…
assembly bob reilly still has his seat, but his vote really was only an obstacle when the legalization bill was in the committee on tourism, sports and art development – which reilly sits on. but the bill has passed through that committee now twice, and by a healthy margin both times. the only thing bogging the bill down is unrelated political issues.
Ah, thank you.
It does not make sense that the federal indictment of the Fertittas’ Station Casinos might quell any chances of fighters organizing in some way.
Why would the indictment have that affect? I would think it would be the opposite. It probably won’t be until many years from now that there will be a better time than right now for MMA fighters to organize in some way.
With one of the Fertittas’ two main businesses already under indictment by the federal government, the Fertittas must know that they are under a microscope and that anything they do right now along the lines of threatening anybody in order to discourage them from organizing would just give a prosecutor more charges to add to the list (and/or to expand the scope of their case).
Fighters undoubtedly still fear the wrath of the Fertittas and Dana White more than they fear getting knocked unconscious in the middle of the Octagon (you don’t need to have followed the business very long to know that), but they have a lot less reason to be fearful right now than they did a couple of weeks ago, because unless the Fertittas are stupid, this indictment has temporarily neutered their ability to allegedly go around threatening people if they attempt to organize in some way.
I apologize for being a butthead in the first post.
I really dont think MMA is going to get a foothold in NY Very soon.
And trying to convince them seems to only steely their opposition against it.
1. NY is an old timey boxing town.
2. Politics in NY seems to me (as an outsider) to be very rooted in that classic tradition of an old boys/backroom club kind of influence.
IE: Not the definition of progressive.
Also see point #1.
Whenever I try to picture NY politics in action I picture a sepia tone and a Scott Joplin piano rag in the background.
🙂
Lovely town I’m sure, just not an MMA neighborhood.
But I know this seems important to Zach so I’ll cross my fingers too.
Come on ppl,
is it so hard to get?
That’s the boxing commission, boxing lobby, etc at work.
If they regulate mma everywhere it would lose it’s bad, nasty, unfair attachments and would be accepted a little more.
Nothing farther from what the boxing guys want, right?
The old boxing guys still hope that’ll go away if they hold their breath long enough…good luck with that!
Zach, thank you for spotlighting this issue. The Culinary Union (an affiliate of the North American union for hospitality workers, UNITE HERE) has been battling the Fertittas for several YEARS now, and one of their weapons has been to block the Fertittas’ lobbying efforts to legalize MMA.
It’s another example, a really major one, in which the Fertittas’ labor relations approach is actually hurting the development of our sport.