Exclusive: Interview with N.Y. State Assemblyman Bob Reilly
My column this week on SportsIllustrated.com deals with the legislative fight over MMA in New York State. At the center of this battle, as you probably know, is Assemblyman Bob Reilly, who is a committed opponent of the sport. Mr. Reilly and I are obviously on different sides of the issue, but he was gracious enough to take the time and explain his position, and for that I thank him.
Why Bob Reilly Opposed MMA
You’ve said before that this isn’t your big issue, that you’re really into agriculture. And yet this is the issue that’s gotten you the most attention. Do you still feel like you’re reluctant opponent of MMA, because you seem to have embraced it rather eagerly of late.
That’s a tough question to answer. What happens is, in the state legislature, with the hundreds of laws we vote on and a budget of maybe $120 billion with a $14 billion deficit and a worldwide financial crisis, there are many, many things we look at. And when I said agriculture is one thing I’m interested in, that’s one thing. I’m on the sub-committee on agriculture, but I’m also on the Racing and Wagering Committee, I’m on the Corporations Committee, so there are many other things I do besides this.
But do I think this is an important thing? Yes. I think it’s going to be harmful to people. I think it’s going to be harmful to our society and harmful to our economy. So it’s one of things I address. The legalization of MMA in New York State, I would say the only person pushing that or interested in it is Steve Englebright, the sponsor. There aren’t a lot of other legislators pushing for it. As I explored it further and became more educated on it, I changed my opinion and become more opposed to it.
You say it’s going to be harmful to people. How, specifically, will allowing live events of this sport in your state harm people?
Well, there’s different parts to that answer and when I answer one part of that question I extend it. Let me give you one example of what I consider the problem and that’s the unsavory, sordid, corrupt process for legalization of this. Just recently I asked an aide to look into the firing of the past chair of the State Athletic Commission, who was replaced by a woman (Melvina Lathan) who in fact had worked for [UFC VP of Regulatory Affairs] Marc Ratner, who now has a primary interest in Ultimate Fighting. And this woman is going to be our primary regulator in New York State? What is the connection and who brought her into this position of getting this chair?
Her statement upon getting the position was about how she supports MMA, which I found very suspect. When I attended a meeting with her she demonstrated that she knew nothing about the sport. And yet her support for the sport was one of the first things that she focused on after being appointed. It’s that type of suspicious activity that really questions the sport. I think we’re down the road toward the corruption in boxing, and what happened to the fighters, the corruption in the sport.
Reilly’s Argument About Violence
But how do you get from any of that to the conclusion that this sport is harmful to people?
Well one of the rules, do you know the five criteria for judging by Pride?
For Pride? Yes.
One of the criteria is damage to your opponent, okay? There’s no other sport that I know of where damage to the opponent is a criteria for winning. In fact, in every other sport, damage to an opponent, the rules work to avoid that, whether it’s boxing or wrestling or whatever. Here, that’s one of the goals. I don’t think you have to say much more than that.
But for one, that was Pride, which had several rule differences between itself and the UFC, and two, harming your opponent to the point of unconsciousness is one of the ways you win a boxing match, isn’t it?
It’s not a stated goal, though. Even though I grew up a boxing fan and consider myself one still, though I’m not an active fan now, I compare what we should be doing to the difference between amateur boxing and professional boxing. You know how much safer amateur boxing is? A blow in amateur boxing is scored for being a clean blow, not by the force behind it or the damage it causes.
I once had a man come to me and say, ‘My nephew is a jiu-jitsu fighter who does MMA, and he has an advantage because of that. What I’m really interested in is the skill of how he puts his jiu-jitsu skills against a boxer or whomever.’ I asked him, if that’s the case, why don’t people want to watch just jiu-jitsu? Why isn’t that as popular? In other words, I strongly believe, you take the violence out of this and it would lose its appeal. Is it very popular with a certain segment of the population? Certainly. Is collegiate wrestling as popular? No.
How does the stated intent of the sport really change the effect that watching it has on people, who may or may not know the stated judging criteria?
Does Watching MMA Encourage Violence?
First of all, I have looked at all the studies that show violence begetting violence. And it’s clear that whether it’s in the media or in a live sporting event, violence does beget violence. I’ve always felt it makes people immune to such violence. But the types of things that you see in mixed martial arts are exactly what we don’t want to see in schools. In the legislature here we are putting in laws all the time against bullying in schools and domestic violence. And when you’re trying to stop that and then you’re legalizing the same type of violent activity it’s hard to believe that kids can distinguish one from the other.
Most people I know find it offensive to see a woman grab another woman by the hair and knee her in the stomach. I find that offensive. Even the proponents of Ultimate Fighting indicate this is widespread among high school students, that they go into their basements and imitate this kind of stuff. That’s exactly what we’re trying to prevent in other legislation. Some of the responses I’ve gotten, mainly through blog sites, have been very on the edge with the kind of intense emotion this arouses in some people. I think that the body of literature supports that viewing violence through various media does in fact generate violence.
When you talk about schools and domestic violence and relating that to a professional MMA bout, aren’t you purposely taking it out of context? We wouldn’t want kids in classrooms imitating what they see in boxing or football either, would we?
No, let us take the case of boxing. When I start viewing this now, more recently I’ve seen ads for boxing that really emphasize blows to the head and pictures of the face being pushed to the side, and I think that’s a bad idea to show kids, so I can’t deny that that’s also important. I think if we could change the sorry history of boxing, we as a society would probably do it. But as far as something like football, I don’t see anything wrong like that with a good hard tackle in football.
One blogger said to me, there are more deaths in fishing than there are in mixed martial arts. But in those sports the purpose is not to do harm to your opponent and there’s a lot of difference between a good hard tackle in football and what happens in mixed martial arts. You see the rule changes in football, that are criticized by some, to bring greater protection to players, especially quarterbacks, and that shows they are interested in protecting and not harming players.
Is it fair then to say you’re against combat sports in general, whether it’s MMA or boxing or kickboxing, since it all involves the intent to harm one’s opponent?
Why Reilly Singled Out MMA
Absolutely not. The only sport I’m against is mixed martial arts. I have people come up to me just about on a daily basis, unsolicited, and say, ‘You’re doing the right thing. This stuff is just brutal.’ People turn this on when they’re scanning through the channels, that’s their only exposure to it, and there are people kicking each other in the head. As one of my aides saw recently, one guy punched the other guy, he was knocked out and falling to the ground, and as he fell the other guy kneed him in the head. People see this and they are really offended and disgusted by it. They see the violence in it. They don’t come up to me and talk that way about boxing or football.
Isn’t it possible that they have that reaction because MMA is still fairly new and that’s what’s shocking? You say violence has a desensitizing effect, so doesn’t it make sense that these people would not have that reaction to football or boxing, which they’ve grown up with? In other words, how do you know it’s not just the novelty of MMA that people are responding to?
That’s possible. People could eventually become immune to mixed martial arts.
Have people become immune to the violence in boxing? Because boxing is two men punching each other in the head and body repeatedly. That’s violent, obviously, and yet it’s legal and happens regularly in New York.
Have people become immune to the violence in boxing? Maybe. Our society and our standards of what’s acceptable change. They haven’t for me, though.
You say you think MMA would be financially harmful to the state. How would it harm New York to allow the sport and the UFC to hold events there?
You know, I got the study the UFC did, and based on their studies, they use Buffalo, but I use Albany since they’re similar cities, we have an arena here in Albany that seats about 19,000. They would say they would bring in about $4 million in the live gate here. They say the tax revenue would add about half a million to the local economy. And I say, yes, but at the same time three and a half million would head back to Vegas.
And here’s where I get a little heady, because just about every casino in this country is surrounded by poverty. If you go out to Turning Stone in our state, where the people who run it say it’s the only successful economic development we have, but in every case, whether it’s Turning Stone or Atlantic City or Las Vegas, these are sumptuous palaces surrounded by poverty. And that’s who runs the UFC is these Las Vegas casino owners. So if they come here the same thing would happen. You can’t take three and a half million bucks out of the economy and expect it to work. We made the mistake already of thinking that gambling will save us from this economic recession, but let’s not add to it and think this is the savior.
I don’t understand the link to casinos and gambling, other than the fact that the owners of the UFC also own some casinos that are separate, as a business, from the UFC. Wouldn’t bringing in tourism money and having activity at these arenas create jobs and infuse the local economy with money from other states?
They come for a day and work in the arena. But if you look at the money, the hundreds of millions of dollars that they’re making, this is a very small part. The lobbyists for mixed martial arts have said to me on several occasions, anything you need, tell us and we’ll get it for you. The guys from Vegas flew in here again last week or the week before, and the lobbyist who was with him said this again, and I told him that I’d already asked for the information on the revenue generated from pay-per-view, and they haven’t done it. They say, ‘Oh, I’ll get that to you.’ But here I sit.
And I don’t like the fallback position of tax revenue that, you know, where is it? But again, you can’t take an area and take money out of it and expect it to flourish. What you’re saying to me is, aren’t they putting half a million in tax revenue into the local economy? But do they take three and a half million back to Vegas? Yes.
So the UFC says they’d take three and a half million back to Vegas out of the four million they generate…
They don’t say that. They say it would generate a half a million dollars worth of business.
Isn’t that still better than nothing? Couldn’t people turn around and say, Bob Reilly is only against this because the state isn’t getting a big enough cut?
But Ben, we started with four million. Now we’re down to half a million? Let me say, the question is does this help the economic status of New York, and does this help the economic status of the individual municipalities where the events would be held? It’s not, ‘Bob Reilly is against capitalism’ or anything like that.
They’ve done a study on it using New York City and Buffalo and I don’t dispute that. But the people who own this Ultimate Fighting aren’t millionaires, they’re billionaires. They’re Las Vegas casino owners. I was in Las Vegas about six weeks ago. At that time, the government was set to cut the wages of teachers and public employees by six percent. That’s not a community. At the same time, at one event out there, the lowest priced ticket was $340 or something like that. My number may be a little wrong but it’s about that. I don’t see how that helps build an economy.
They will come to somewhere like Albany and say, this is creating jobs. But this doesn’t create jobs, it just takes money out of the economy. And I understand that some of the money comes from outside the area. But the bottom line is, you have four million dollars in the area, and it generates a half a million of economic activity, three and a half million leaves your area. I’m not against gambling and I’m not against casinos, but I think we’ve become as a society and as a government in New York, too dependent on gambling as a source of revenue.
I hear you repeatedly making these comparisons to gambling and casinos. Is that only because the Fertittas own casinos?
Not just because, but in part. I do compare the two activities somewhat. But what has mixed martial arts done for Las Vegas? Many of those casinos are now going broke. The city is in a bad financial situation. So it hasn’t done too much for their economy.
To get away from the economic argument for a moment, what about the issue of personal liberty for the fighters who want to participate in this and make a living in their home state and the fans who want to see it? What do you say to the fighter who says you’re stopping him from making a living just because you find the sport offensive?
I think that’s a very valid question. Another issue that we’re debating at the present moment in New York is whether to allow wine to be sold in grocery stores, rather than just liquor stores. The grocery stores make a good point and there are invariably merits on both sides of the issue. But I’m opposed to it because it would drive most of our small, locally owned liquor stores out of business. In my area of the state, if you want to go to a fish market, a butcher, a bakery, or a florist, you go to the huge supermarket. One of the only things they don’t sell is wine. I want to preserve those small liquor stores because I think they help our economy. But there’s merits on both sides of the issue. So it is here.
The argument you just made, I get many emails that make that argument, but this is the role of government. Government says what you can and can’t do. Government says you can’t drive over a certain speed limit or you can’t sell wine in grocery stores or you can’t stage a dog fight…
Now, hold on, isn’t that an offensive analogy?
People might get angry about the analogy and say the difference is that a person can choose to get into a ring and fight and a dog can’t, but so be it, even boxing is very highly regulated affair. And let me make one other point. This is not Bob Reilly’s issue alone. I have people coming up to me about it all the time. I conducted a poll…
I saw your poll, yes.
…Right, and the poll said 67% of people oppose this. That’s not Bob Reilly saying this, that’s our people. 67% of them. And the UFC has this PR firm, Global Strategies, and they immediately attacked the legitimacy of the poll saying, you said the sport was illegal. Well, what am I supposed to say, it’s legal? It isn’t. But the point is, people don’t want it. They don’t want it.
Realistically, what do you think your chances are of keeping MMA out of New York long term?
You want me to answer honestly?
Please.
Okay. I think that it will not be legalized this year. I think that in the future there might be some radical changes that will be made. For example, the people supporting it…in our original legislation to legalize it the state was to get 3% of the gate. I did some research and found that in other states they got 10%. So I pointed this out and the sponsor of the legislation changed it to read 10%. Now, I’m very interested to see – and I have a background in TV – and I’m very interested in what the revenue is from pay-per-view. I believe the real money in all sports is TV. And so the hundreds of millions of dollars generated in mixed martial arts is in TV, but to get the amount of tax revenue generated by that, they’d have to give us the information on that and they don’t give us the information.
Do you feel like you’re fighting a futile fight against a big company in a kind of David & Goliath story?
Well, the original plan was for them to push this through without anyone noticing. And I went to explain why I was voting against it, and lo and behold the majority of the committee members voted against it. But yes, I am the most visible legislator in opposition to this.
Do I feel like David and Goliath in this? I do somewhat. Just the amounts of money involved alone. They were here recently giving very sizable donations to individual legislators, and they have this whole PR firm. And against that I have myself. So yes, I feel like I’m up against a giant.
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