With news breaking that New York Gov. Mario Cuomo (D) didn’t put a special line item in his budget for the sanctioning of mixed martial arts, speculation has run rampant that the move somehow means that MMA’s hopes for sanctioning in the Empire State are already doomed. I mean, the UFC donated campaign money to the campaign of Cuomo and other political figures, so what’s the hold up?
Now everyone take a deep, collective breath and stop having a panic attack. Yes, Cuomo also proposed eliminating the salary for a head of the athletic commission, but there is no proof that the cost saving measure will have any impact on the legalization of mixed martial arts or hinder other combat sports, mainly boxing, that are already sanctioned in the state.
MMAJunkie recently spoke with frustrated UFC President Dana White about the governor’s budget decision, and he had this to say:
At the end of the day, do we really need New York? No. But New York should be open. We should be able to do it.
To their credit, MMAWeekly actually tried to get comment from athletic commission chair Melvina Lathan but hadn’t heard back yet. Still, that hasn’t stopped people from assuming this will somehow have ramifications for boxing…in New York…the home of Madison Square Garden. Feel free to call me an idiot if and when New York starts limiting the number of major boxing events held in that state. Until then, I think it’s safe to assume that this move has more to do with saving money. Maybe the athletic commission and all of its duties won’t change one bit except for cutting out a politically-appointed bureaucrat. Or maybe the athletic commission will merge with another agency to streamline government operations (believe it or not, that does happen sometimes).
Is it frustrating? Sure. But is all of this a surprise or even a big deal? Honestly, no. Expecting anything political in New York to go smoothly is naive. With a budget deficit in the neighborhood of $9 billion, Cuomo has bigger problems on his hands.
Republicans control the Senate and there are probably a few Democrats in the Assembly that won’t just fall in line with whatever the governor wants, so getting the budget finished up will be a long, excruciating balancing act that Cuomo may not want to hamper with a proposal dealing with mixed martial arts. As wacky as they might sound, there are some — most prominently Assemblyman Bob Reilly (D) — that still oppose the idea of legalizing MMA and falling in line with the rest of the country. When you’re trying to gather every bit of support possible to make sure schools are properly funded, roads are maintained, and cover your political butt by avoiding tax increases, MMA is suddenly pretty low on the priority list.
And from a policy standpoint, while all of us supporters and fans of the sport come from an angle that MMA should absolutely by safely regulated, you could argue that it makes better democratic sense to discuss MMA in a separate bit of legislation instead of burying it in a complicated budget package. I don’t like when legislators jam through wasteful projects or asinine policy measures in a large, completely unrelated bill, so it’s only fair to recommend going about legalizing MMA in an open, civilized manner.
The session just started, and getting MMA sanctioned in a state as big and complicated — and sometimes inefficient — as New York won’t happen easily. It was never going to. Then-Gov. David Paterson (D) listed MMA sanctioning in his final executive budget, and look where that got us?
As a political insider once told me, you have to be patient with these sorts of things.