Arguing, among other things, that mixed martial arts competition in front of an audience is a form of expression that should be protected by the first amendment.
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Do they have a case? Personally, I’d be in favor of MMA being legalized in New York, but this argument feels like a stretch to me.
I think so. New York doesn’t ban blood sports; it bans professional ones. That seems like a clear indication that the regulation is content-based, which brings it within the reach of the First Amendment.
Could you explain this more? I would think that if non-professional is a-okay then it doesn’t suppress expression only payment for that expression.
In other words, the people involved are free to express themselves, but money can’t exchange hands for it.
So, anything is legal, as long as they’re a camera around?
New York bans mixed martial arts specifically. It doesn’t ban boxing.
Yeah, blood sports was a poor choice of words.
From Ali v. State Athletic Comm’n of N. Y., 316 F. Supp. 1246, 1247 (S.D.N.Y. 1970):
This really goes more to whether the NY Athletic Commission should be able to ban MMA when it doesn’t ban boxing, but it also means they have to show some basis for distinguishing professional MMA from amateur MMA.
States generally have the power to protect their own citizens from harm, even speculative harm, and I assume this is how New York justifies its ban. In an age when every New Yorker can engage in fight sports directly, the ban is clearly not aimed at protecting citizens from harm caused by fighting, and when they can watch on TV it can’t be to protect them from harm caused by watching. What does that leave?
It seems the converse is the case: it’s only illegal because there’s a camera pointed at it.
Do you have a cite. The law seems to ban “combatitive sports” in general, not just professionally.
Combatitive sports are basically defined as any martial arts type sport that isn’t backed by a professional organization recognized by the State Athletic Comission (MMA obviously isn’t one).
The UFC’s complaint alleges that “while New York bans live professional fights, it allows mixed martial arts gyms, amateur fights and the component disciplines of M.M.A., like judo, tae kwon do, karate and kenpo.”
I assume it’s true and §2 is not enforced, since a blanket ban on martial arts seems rather unlikely- and the law on its face would bar the athletic commission from licensing boxing too.
The law exempts sports recognized by the athletic commission, which include judo, tae kwon do, boxing, etc. The reason professional MMA isn’t allowed isn’t because its professional, its because MMA in general doesn’t have an exemption.
Here’s a description of the laws written by a NY lawyer.
I don’t know how it is in New York but in a lot of the states that still ban MMA, the primary reason is due to boxing promoters at the state level having political clout and essentially working to keep MMA out of that territory.
At one point UFC was banned in 48 states and for pretty good reasons, it was almost entirely without rules and weight classes. While I think people should be allowed to participate in stuff that stupid, I’m also not one to think it totally unreasonable for State officials to decide to prohibit it. I think early UFC literally banned eye gouging and biting and that was it. I know there was no weight classes and it was incredibly violent with frequent injuries.
Now? Since it has weight classes and more reasonable rules it’s honestly much safer than boxing. Mainly because the sport often comes down to more low impact grappling and such, when blows to the head happen the fights are quickly stopped if the fighter being pummeled can’t properly defend against them. Additionally, MMA fighters wear light gloves which means you do not see the massive, repetitive, brain killing blows you see with boxing. Not that getting hit in the head at all is a good thing, but because the whole premise of boxing is that you’re going to get hit in the head sometimes over a hundred times by a guy wearing a glove that is thick enough that it allows him to throw very hard punches with no fear of hurting his hand I think long term damage from boxing is far higher than with MMA.