Reports claim that the UFC had spent a significant sum of money last year in attempts to influence legislators on the act.
In news first reported by Bloody Elbow, the release of lobbying reports claim that the aggregate sum was spent by the promotion in 2016 on such actions:
A document dated December 9th, 2016 revealed a sum of approximately $80,000 had been paid by ‘Zuffa LLC dba Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)” to Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP to lobby both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives regarding ‘Piracy of copyrighted programming’ and ‘H.R 5365 – Muhammad Ali Expansion Act’.
In a document dated January 23rd, 2017, it is disclosed that the UFC also paid Farragut Partners LLP an estimated $50,000 to lobby the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives. This payment was in exchange for ‘work on the Muhammad Ali Act’.
With the addition of these two documents, there were a total of eight lobbying reports disclosed by ZUFFA and/or the UFC in 2016 which mention the Ali Expansion Act. The total money described in these documents amounts to an estimated $420,000.
The H.R 5365 bill in question found its way to congress via Representative Markwayne Mullins, who is a member of the Republican party from Oklahoma’s 2nd district in May last year. The said bill was also allegedly “co-sponsored by 5 republicans and 2 democrats”, with the intention to amend the Professional Boxing Safety Act of 1996 (which is better known as the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act) to apply to mixed martial arts.
The bill follows the course of submission to theU.S. House of Representatives, who will in turn debate and vote upon it. Should a vote be passed, the bill is referred to the U.S Senate -here it will be put to vote again. Should it once again pass a vote, the President of The United States has the option of signing it into law or pushing it back to the House of Representatives.A
