A collection of MMA journalists has formed an association calling themselves the “MMAJA” as first reported by SI. The officers for the MMAJA include writers from MMA Junkie, MMA Fighting, Bleacher Report and The Guardian.
The Board of Directors is comprised of Dann Stupp, Ariel Helwani, Chad Dundas, Marc Raimondi, Ben Fowlkes and Josh Gross. The goal of the association is to promote a high standard of ethics and professionalism and help navigate working relationships with promoters, fighters and others in the MMA industry.
According to SI article, the thought of an association came out of the UFC 199 incident which Ariel Helwani and two others were ejected by the UFC from the event after a report made by Helwani.
Of course, the other side of the story is that Helwani was being paid by the UFC to cover the company.
According to the web site, MMA journalists are encouraged to join. There is a fee to join for a one year membership.
Payout Perspective:
This is a good idea as there are these types of associations in other sports like football and baseball. While it is unknown how much true power the association will yield, collectively coming together and establishing standards is a step toward more of a professional appearance similar to that of other sports. For the cynic, it does appear that writers from big media companies (Vox, Bleacher, Guardian) control the board but this could change as these are the people that started the association. It will be interesting to see who will join and how promotions deal with an association. Certainly, MMA media and bloggers that cover the sport have been a scapegoat when it comes to reporting.
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