It’s time for Vancouver City Council to move forward on MMA – Part 2

Yesterday I dealt with the rocky road that MMA has had to encounter in Vancouver over the past few years.  Today I want to delve into what I outlined as the three most pressing issues that City Council will have to consider in the vote that is now expected sometime in November:

1. Safety
2. Liability
3. Economic Impact

While at one point these might have been considerations that Council could use as justification for delaying the return of professionally sanctioned fights to Vancouver, the concerns have largely been alleviated by the facts.

First, let’s deal with safety.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) debuted in the United States in 1993 and marketed as no-holds-barred tournaments that favoured brutality and blood over the science of say boxing for example.

Proper sanctioning only came in 2001, when a number of rule changes prompted the Nevada State Athletic Commission and the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board to agree to regulate the competitions as a sport.  Gone were headbutts, stomps or knees to an opponent on the ground, strikes to the throat, spine or back of the head, fighters competing across weight classes, fights that lasted for an unlimited amount of time until a final result and the occurrence of fighters engaging in more than one fight per night.  Fighters became subject to the same physical exam used to screen professional boxers (including a cerebral MRI) before being licensed.

I might note that the UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, Marc Ratner, is the formerly with the Nevada State Athletic Commission.  Ratner joined the Nevada Athletic Commission in 1985, became the Chief Inspector in 1987 and served as the Commission’s Executive Director from 1992 to 2006.

Since his arrival, the UFC has visited Quebec, London, Dublin, Belfast, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle and Cologne, and been sanctioned in close to 40 states in the United States.  He travels with a staff that consists of dozens of medical professionals, regulatory experts and safety consultants all there to improve the competition of the sport in every ring situation in every constituency.

A report from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Department of Emergency Medicine entitled “Injury Trends in Sanctioned Mixed Martial Arts Competition: A Five-Year Review, 2002-2007,” details that:

“During the 635 professional MMA matches, 300 of the 1,270 athletes sustained documented injuries with an injury rate of 23.6 per 100 fight participations. Most common reported injuries were lacerations and upper extremity injuries. Severe concussion rate was 15.4 per 1,000 athlete exposures, or 3% of all matches. No deaths or critical sports-related injuries resulted from any of the regulated matches during the study period. Age, weight, and fight experience did not statistically increase the likelihood of injuries after controlling for other covariates.”

The report concluded that injury rates in regulated professional MMA competition are similar to other combat sports; the overall risk of critical sports-related injury seems to be low.

In fact, there are other sports that have a far more sordid history when it comes to  safety and injury.

In the United States, there were 22,900 cheerleading-related injuries treated in emergency rooms in 2002, up from 10,900 in 1990, according to the Columbus study. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, meanwhile, reported there were nearly six times as many emergency room visits for cheerleaders in 2004 than in 1980.

Of 104 catastrophic injuries sustained by female high school and college athletes from 1982 to 2005 — head and spinal trauma that occasionally led to death — more than half resulted from cheerleading, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research. All sports combined did not surpass cheerleading.

In 2005, the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Catastrophic Injury Insurance Program found that 25 percent of the money spent on claims for student-athletes since 1998 resulted from cheerleading. That made it second only to football.

Boxing, which subjects fighters to repeated head punches, is believed to cause brain damage that has gone largely undocumented until very recently.  A study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania concludes that 17 percent of former professional boxers have a form of advanced Parkinson’s disease, commonly called “punch-drunk syndrome,” that is the result of multiple brain concussions.

Bottom line?  The injury record for MMA is very favourable to several other sports that are seamlessly allowed to compete within the City of Vancouver.

Secondly, let’s deal with liability.

Here is what the City’s Chief Licensing Inspector Tom Hammell is proposing:

“Promoters must provide evidence of commercial general liability insurance with limits of not less than $2 million for professional boxing and wrestling events and exhibitions.  The required limit of commercial general liability insurance is to be increased to a minimum limit of $5 million for kick-boxing, mixed martial arts and ultimate fighting events.   The policy is to be issued in the promoter’s name and shall name the City of Vancouver and Vancouver Athletic Commission, their officials, officers, employees and agents as additional insureds with respect to liability arising out of the activities and operations conducted by or on behalf of the promoter.”

This is standard.  Any venue and or municipality that sanctions a fight, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER IN CANADA, THE U.S. OR EUROPE, is always intricately protected from financial liability for injury or other incidents.  The promoter is always the one that takes on that responsibility, and the contracts that are signed with the venue and the respective athletic commission provides ample detail to signify this kind of arrangement.

The City of Montreal has held two events thus far without fear of reprisal, so why should it be any different in Vancouver’s case?

Which brings me to my final issue of the economic impact on a host city.

The numbers, quite frankly, are staggering.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship’s sophomore event in Montreal set a new North American MMA attendance record with 21,451 attendees, who combined for a staggering $4.9 million gate.  The combined economic spinoffs from the two UFC events held in Montreal is estimated to be over $50 million.

A recent study done in New York state found that a UFC event in New York City would generate $11.5 million in ‘net new’ economic activity: $5.3 million in direct event spending, $1.4 million in non-lodging visitor spending, and $4.9 million in indirect/induced benefits.  This would in turn provide and $400,000 in tax revenue for New York City and $550,000 in tax revenue for the state.

Another study in Massachusetts determined that a UFC event in Boston would produce economic output of $12.3 million. provide $775,000 in tax revenues to the state and employ 600 workers.

In Las Vegas, the UFC generated $86.2 million in nongaming revenue for six events between February 2, 2008 and January 31, 2009.

This is only referring to UFC.  Rival organizations like StrikeForce would also be potential suitors for Vancouver’s beautiful locale, and would similarly result in millions of dollars in revenues with stars like Fedor Emelianenko on their roster.  There is also a number of local promoters that would have the ability to draw in 2,000-3,000 fans for events with a mid-level name in the MMA world.

The possibilities for revenue and tax generation associated with MMA are endless, and only bound to grow.

Western Canadian fans are rapid when it comes to their love for MMA.  The UFC 100 pay-per-view event drew a capacity crowd of 12,000 people, paying an average of more than $425 per ticket, and amassing a live gate of $5.1 million US.  Ringside seats were being sold by resellers for as much as $40,000 in the days leading up to the event.  A large number of those ticket-holders flew in from Western Canada — in fact, 10 per cent of ticket buyers at reseller website StubHub came from Alberta, with a further seven per cent hailing from B.C.

According to Dana White, President of UFC:

“It’s an interesting situation because I think, pound-for-pound, the UFC is more popular in Canada than any other country — including the USA.”

Let the spending bonanza – a sustained and long term spending bonanza – begin.

Tomorrow in Part 3 of this series, I will examine how MMA has the potential to spark a renewal in Vancouver’s professional sports scene, which over the past decade has experienced some serious blows.