June 14, 2011, New York State Assembly Codes Committee vote on regulating MMA in the state for Metro NYC Newspaper
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Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White’s vision of mixed martial arts events in New York state is two votes away from transforming from dream to reality.
The New York Assembly Codes Committee voted 17-to-3 to pass a bill that would regulate MMA events in the state yesterday afternoon. The senate passed the bill by a 42-18 vote in May. Last week, the Assembly sub-committee on tourism overwhelmingly passed the bill. The next step is for the bill to be voted on by the ways and means committee; if it passes, the bill will then go to the Assembly for a final vote. Should it pass the Assembly floor it would be sent to Governor Cuomo.
“Today was real big,” said UFC Vice president of regulatory affairs Marc Ratner. Ratner was joined in Albany by vice president of business and legal affairs and assistant general counsel Mike Mersh and light heavyweight fighter Rashad Evans.
With the session concluding on June 20 time is of the essence for proponents of legalizing MMA in the state, especially considering that it has never been closer to being legalized in the state than it is now.
“We need to get it to the floor,” Ratner told Metro after the codes committee vote. He said the ways and means committee could vote on the bill either today or tomorrow. “We don’t want to get timed out; just want to get (a vote) up or down.”
Mersh told Metro before the committee vote that all UFC has ever asked for is an “opportunity” for the legalization of the sport to be voted on, and stated that the organization is “confident” that it would pass.
What could benefit the legalization process is that it appears to have bipartisan backing. A spokesperson for Democratic Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi (Queens) told Metro yesterday afternoon he was “very supportive” of legalizing MMA. Republican Assemblyman Dean Murray (Suffolk County) told those in attendance at the January press conference he had “a funny feeling (he and Saratoga County Assemblyman Bob Reilly) will be speaking” because “the fact of the matter is, in this economic climate, we don’t need more tax increases. We need to a chance to raise revenue.”
Reilly is adamantly anti-legalization as he is concerned about the sport’s inherent violence vis a vis its affect on children along with the after affects of fights for the fighters; he has also questioned whether the state should do business the Feritta Brothers — the owners of the UFC — while expressing his distaste for the UFC’s President.
Mersh did not believe Reilly could implement a “filibuster-type maneuver” to kill a potential vote, but acknowledged that the Saratoga County assemblyman would vote against legalizing the sport.
UFC held a press conference at Madison Square Garden in January in which it unveiled a study that stated MMA would produce $23 million in revenues yearly for the state along with spawning 212 jobs. New York and Buffalo, which would host yearly major pay per view events, would bring in $16 million worth of income while non-UFC events would create $7 million in revenues, according to the study.
http://www.metro.us/newyork/sports/article/889019--mma-in-new-york-on-the-cusp-of-legalization
posted by Denis P. Gorman at 12:12 PM
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