UFC in New York no longer below the belt | NYUs Daily Student Newspaper

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by Ji Hyun ParkPublished February 2 2010

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The first rule of fight club is You do not talk about fight club Brad Pitts character TylerDurden uttered in the acclaimed 1999 film Fight Club But with Governor David Patersonsnew proposal to legalize the Ultimate Fighting Championship in New York street fightersmay no longer have to take their brawls underground

Paterson made the announcement as part of his 2009-10 budget plan and said revenuesmade from events could help close New Yorks $9 billion budget gap

A 2008 study by the UFC estimated the state could earn $115 million from one event in NewYork City alone and $52 million for the same event in Buffalo

MMA is a safe and regulated sport that deserves to be legalized UFC spokeswoman JenniferWenk said The fact is that UFC events sell out arenas coast-to-coast and would do the samein New York The tax revenue and economic impact of those events would benefit all NewYorkers

Despite the estimated revenues many New Yorkers oppose the proposition According to arecent Marist poll 68 percent of the state opposes legalizing UFC

Assemblyman Robert Reilly a chief opponent of the bill argues that the sport is morallyobjectionable and would not be a good financial move for the state

It would actually cost the state more money than doing a reform of taxes

NYU students have expressed a similarly divided point of view

Knowing that itll now be in NYC well its scary to think about from the standpoint ofparents and school administrators Gallatin sophomore Jillian Bray said Sure parentsshould monitor what their children see and do on TV but it is impossible to keep them fromseeing these sorts of things and drawing their own conclusions

Allan Zhang a junior in the Silver School of Social Work disagrees

Why not he asked It should be legalized Besides the fact that itll help bring revenue italready has a huge fan following in the city

Michael Cramer a professor at the Tisch Center for Hospitality Tourism and SportsManagement agrees that holding a UFC event in New York may create some revenue butadded that it will be a tiny piece in the overall reduction of the budget deficit

Cramer also addressed the safety issues We would have to assume that if legal they areadequately supervised and that material harm would be curtailed as much as possible

Reilly fiercely opposes the bill and argues that bringing the UFC to the city will only producemore violence

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UFC in New York no longer below the belt | NYUs Daily Student Newspaper

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Violence begets violence he said Its only going to harm all those involved

Ji Hyun Park is a contributing writer

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