Forbes: Ultimate Cash Machines
It's the Ultimate Money Machine. That night before the Super Bowl 10,700 fans packed the arena, paying an average of $340 for a ticket to witness nine mixed martial arts fights. Another 500,000 fans paid $45 ($55 for high definition) to watch five of the nine fights at home. The total haul from the event: $25 million.
Sports Illustrated: The rising interest in mixed martial arts is tied to Ultimate Fighting, which changed its ways to gain acceptance. Now its success is changing the sports landscape
Saturday night was all right for fighting. But the pageantry for the 69th card in the Ultimate Fighting Championship's tough-and-rumble existence began much earlier that week. Long before the fighters unhinged the latch of the steel Octagon on April 7 and fought on a card titled UFC 69: Shootout, thousands of fans had converged on Houston, tribalists on a pilgrimage.
May 22, 2007
Newly sanctioned by Governor Deval Patrick and the Legislature amid the hunt for fresh revenue, the UFC will debut in Massachusetts Saturday at TD Garden as one of the highest-grossing events ever on Causeway Street. With box-office prices ranging from $75 to $600, the UFC’s inaugural mixed martial arts night in Boston is expected to generate nearly $4 million in ticket sales and pump an additional $6 million into the recession-racked local economy.
August 25, 2010
The Star: Ontario to allow mixed martial arts
The UFC is coming to Ontario. Josh Rapport, the general manager at Toronto BJJ, received the text message this morning. “If a politician even coughs that they’re going to revisit the issue everyone freaks out and says, ‘It’s coming, it’s coming,” he said.
August 14, 2010
Associated Press: Sen. Reid to push for MMA regulation in New York
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid lost his skepticism of mixed martial arts when he saw everything the UFC has done for Nevada. He thinks New York lawmakers will have a similar experience if they allow it into their state.
July 9, 2010
Buffalo News: Legalized and regulated, events could be beneficial
For more than a decade now, New York has had the opportunity to observe its sister states develop and improve the regulation of professional mixed martial arts (MMA). To date, 44 states, not including New York, have legalized MMA.
April 10, 2010
New York Post: UFC in New York state of mind
The press conference for UFC 78 was held in a small room at a hotel near the Newark Airport with less than 50 people in attendance. That was in November 2007, the last time the mixed martial arts company staged a show at the Prudential Center. Yesterday, the press conference for UFC 111 was at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan, where a crowd of more than 700 media and fans kicked off a promotion that is as much about New York as it is New Jersey.
March 25, 2010
The New York Times: Garden Shows an Interest in M.M.A.
Mixed martial arts is not legal in New York State, but that has not stopped Madison Square Garden from jumping into the cage. Radio City Music Hall, which the Garden operates, will host a news conference on Wednesday for the Ultimate Fighting Championship pay-per-view card on Saturday in Newark. The fights, to be contested at the sold-out Prudential Center, will be shown on a big screen at Radio City.
March 24, 2010
The New York Times: Overseer of Boxing, Supporter of M.M.A.
Melvina Lathan, the chairwoman of the New York State Athletic Commission, has a passion for boxing that “began in vitro,” she says, and would lead her to be a judge of 83 championship fights around the world. But she appreciates mixed martial arts enough to want the State Legislature to legalize the sport it banned. “It’s not something I rush home to see, but I recognize its athleticism,” she said. “I like the intelligence needed to get out of holds where so many disciplines are used. When they’re grappling, I grab the edge of my chair.”
March 6, 2010
The New York Daily News: UFC back in New York? Gov. Paterson wants to legalize ultimate fighting - to resolve budget crisis
ALBANY - Gov. Paterson is set to propose legalizing ultimate fighting and its controversial steel-cage matches to help wrestle the state's fiscal woes. Madison Square Garden and upstate venues have supported the idea in hopes of hosting its events. An Ultimate Fighting Championship league match scheduled for Newark in March sold out last week.
January 11, 2010
Sports Illustrated: Governor signs bill regulating MMA fights in Mass.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick on Monday signed into law a bill regulating mixed martial arts, making it a near certainty that the UFC will host an event in the Bay State sometime in 2010.
December 1, 2009
New York Daily News: Hand-to-hand combat that's good for N.Y.: Bring MMA to the Empire State
As a devoted follower of the full-contact sport known as mixed martial arts (MMA) - sometimes called "ultimate fighting" - I often host "fight watch" parties at my home on Long Island. The last few events we have watched have come from Pennsylvania, Nevada, California, Texas and Indiana. When the talk turns to how great it would be to go to an MMA event in New York, my friends glare at me. You see, I take much of the blame for our state being one of only nine that still does not allow and regulate this exciting sport.
November 18, 2009
WSYR-Syracuse: Growing Base of UFC Fans in CNY
Cicero (WSYR-TV) – Saturday night marked the 100th tournament of the ultimate fighting championship airing on pay-per view. Hundreds of fans around Central New York gathered to organize viewing parties.
July 12, 2009
USA Today: UFC's milestone event shows how far sport has come
NEW YORK — Marc Ratner vividly remembers driving up to the Mandalay Bay Events Center on the Las Vegas Strip. It was late September 2001, and the longtime head of the Nevada State Athletic Commission couldn't believe what was unfolding. Thousands of people had lined up more than an hour before the doors opened for UFC 33, the first mixed martial arts event ever sanctioned in his state.
July 10, 2009
The Buffalo News: Mixed martial arts taking hold in area
Jason Trzewieczynski is on all fours. Paint splattered on his hands, he puts the final touches on a jujitsu design at his mixed martial arts gym in Clarence Center — the Buffalo Training Center. Trzewieczynski dropped out of college two years ago, but he's putting that design major to use here. July 8, 2009
Rochester Democrat & Chronicle: Mixed martial arts fighters want to be able to fight in New York state
On a recent Monday afternoon, the sounds of emphatic thuds echo off the walls of Bedroc Martial Arts Academy — a dungeon-like facility in the back of Xtreme Fitness, a gym in Greece. The resounding "oomph" has become commonplace at Bedroc, where 20-year-old Tom Vanderhorst trains seven days a week. Vanderhorst is locked in an intimidating zone as he kicks away at pads. Onlookers can take solace in one comforting fact — it's not them he's laying into.
April 26, 2009
The Schenectady Gazette: Fans want mixed martial arts legalized
Wanderlei Silva poses for photographs and signs autographs. He beams at the awestruck students who will spend the better part of the morning at Empire Martial Arts in Colonie watching him demonstrate mixed martial arts moves and practicing those moves themselves. A charming, bearish man who also happens to be one of the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s top guns, Silva strides to the front of the gym. The students break into applause and gather around him in a circle. Silva is allowed to teach mixed martial arts in New York. But he cannot compete here.
March 22, 2009
