Should the UFC Do More for Fighter Safety in Non-UFC Bouts?

http://www.sbnation.com/users/dmayeda

Relevant to the article – I’d love to see the UFC help out the minor leagues, or even set up their own smaller, regional organizations (UFC South, UFC Southwest, UFC New England, etc), but I don’t know how thin that would spread them out. They’re already fighting battles in Canada, Germany, New York & other states – how much more can they competently do right now?

The only thing the UFC should be responsible for in that regard is if they set up their own minor leagues, which I wouldn’t mind. Making the big corp responsible for the little companies mistakes that they have nothing to do with is kinda like punishing the UFC for being successful.

Dumb.

And before someone compares this to revenue sharing, not the same at all.

The UFC should help IF the organizations allow the UFC to farm the company. Otherwise. No.

other sports, even violent, collision-sports, such as football, an infrastructure exists that at least in theory is there to help prevent tragedy at all levels, from the NFL, down through the collegiate, high school, and even Pop Warner levels

And how did this infrastructure get put into place? It sure wasn’t the NFL paying the dues.

If you make Strikeforce subsidize this on any significant level, there won’t be a Strikeforce anymore. And since you like to imply that the UFC is always on the verge of financial catastrophe, where is this money coming from?

wait wat

Zuffa (and Strikeforce to a degree) should assist in the founding of a mma association, basing it along the lines of the the United States Tennis Association and the United States Golf Association. It would not be a fighters’s association, there is no way in hell the UFC is going to help back that. It would be a non-profit that is established be a to standardize rules and regulations and to promote and develop the growth of mma. It could work on training judges and refs, assisting promotions in getting proper medical treatment, setting minimum standards for promotions and amateurs etc. Maybe it could set an age limit of 18 for those taking part in mma events. The early, feeder systems would be left to traditional combat sports: judo, wrestling, boxing, grappling, kickboxing, etc.

And to finance it, all member promotions would pledge $1 per ticket sold and 1% of all ppv revenue (or $0.45 per buy). The biggest burden would fall on the UFC of course, but they also have the most to gain by having someone out there fighting the good fight for them.

Come one Dana and Scott, lets make the North American Association of Mixed Martial Arts reality!

I don’t think I could even go through everything right now without having a headache. Above all this would set a dangerous precedent and give the government the power to FORCE large companies to subsidize any small company for any reason if there is a direct or indirect link to them. A ruling like this would have far reaching consequences with many not being good.

This is another example of the problem so many people have when looking at economics. They only analyze the short term consequences applauding the so called “ethical business perspective” and fail to follow the pipeline to see the unintended long term problems. This happens, precisely because it takes a concentrated and concerted effort to analyze all the effects of a given policy. Many effects are invisible to the naked eye I and a special way of thinking is needed to see how other parts of the particular industry, different businesses, capital, etc. are affected. The very policy’s original purpose can eventually do more harm than good in the future.

I see no reason why the major orgs would be forced to throw money at this, that just seems like a gross overstepping of the governments limits. I do think, that it would be reasonable for these two orgs however to throw money at these smaller organizations in order to avoid tragedies which shine a poor light on the sport. If they use their funds to maintain safety at all levels, thus helping the sport, it could help their business. This should however be entirely their prerogative, nobody should make them do this.

Regardless of what business you’re in, whenever someone proposes putting in place disincentives for people to try to compete with you (i.e. become a “big org”), you’ve got to at least consider it.

I don’t see how this would increase safety, I would have thought it would just outsource the cost of safety and allow the promoter to pocket more profit.

If you can’t afford to properly test athletes, you don’t hold MMA cards?

…and I’m pretty much a pinko, I don’t see how this falls on the UFC.

I get that the money needs to come from somewhere, and that the UFC has more of it than anyone else, but this isn’t rural electrification we’re talking about. This is taking money directly from Zuffa and giving it to their competitors. Either promoters need to be able to cover the necessary expenses or they need to stay out of the fight game.