GSP will likely be the man that will front a UFC card in Toronto that should attract over 60,000 fans to the Rogers Centre.
I find it ironic that the weekend news of the Ontario government’s decision to sanction MMA fighting in the province comes in the same week that the BC Medical Association is pushing the Canadian Medical Association to advocate for a national ban on the sport.
And so while Vancouver was first to lift the ban and hold a UFC Pay Per View, it looks as though Toronto and Ontario are poised to overtake our position within the country for a sport that clearly has huge economic impacts attached to it.
The BCMA resolution is likely to have a ripple effect that needs to be addressed early rather than permeating the consciousness of the decision-making powers at both the provincial and municipal levels.
First, the BCMA is completely off base with its statements.
Take this for example:
“We’re concerned that this is a sport that’s different from many others, in that the goal is to disable the opponent,” association President Dr. Ian Gillespie told CTV News.
“We know that there is an increased risk of concussion in this type of sport with the nature of the blows.”
Let’s break this down. First, how is it different from Boxing, where the goal is also to “disable the opponent”? Second, how can there possibly be more of a concussion risk than in boxing, where 75% of the blows are to the head (Muhammad Ali is in the state he is in today for that very reason).
Furthermore, with concussions overtaking hockey and football, I guarantee you that the statistics will show that there are far more in those sports than in MMA.
There are is also research that completely disputes what the BCMA is claiming.
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.
Or how about this:
The risks of taking a tumble from in cheerleading are far more dangerous than MMA, according to the statistics.
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.
So the BCMA has no idea what it is talking about.
Furthermore, the resolution was crafted without a lot of inquiry into it:
Involvement, rather than attaching stigma to the fastest growing sport in the world right now, is how things become safer and better. Turning a blind eye to a phenomenon that is unstoppable is just stupid.
The amount of money that a Rogers Centre event in Toronto with Georges St. Pierre headlining next year could reach $30-50 million in economic spinoff for the city.
BC if now in third place of the three provinces where UFC is heading, largely because of a provincial government that is not willing to create a provincial sanctioning body (a cop-out approach) and a City that is looking to cripple the sport by unreasonable demands on insurance and indemnification clauses – far more than any other jurisdiction.
It’s time to get to work, people. MMA is not going away. The economic impact of an event is absolutely huge:
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.
If we don’t get our shit together here in BC, it might be a very long time before UFC returns to this city.
And that would be bad for everyone, regardless of whether you are a fan of the sport or not.
The numbers do not lie.
