In July, the Nevada State Athletic Commission made pay information for combat sports confidential. The new amendment to the Nevada rule prevents the media and/or public from obtaining purse information disclosed by promoters prior to bouts.
Certain states such as Washington and California disclose pay information upon request. However, other states such as New York and Texas do not disclose the information. Notably, Florida releases pay information for MMA but does not for boxing as it says it violates the Ali Act.
The NAC referred MPO to this release regarding what are confidential per statute:
The new amendment allows for the Commission to keep confidential “[a]ny information that is submitted or disclosed to the Commission or otherwise obtained by the Commission pursuant to the chapter or the regulations adopted…” One can tell that this is a sweeping change that allows anything filed with the NAC to be considered confidential.
As we wrote back in July:
Some combat sports writers believe this does nothing to impact reporting as obtaining this information is “lazy journalism.” The Athletic’s Mike Coppinger claimed that the payouts were incorrect citing the fact that boxers such as Deontay Wilder made more than what was claimed on the payout sheet provided to the commission. He also claimed that this new measure would require journalists or “journalists” to source its own information on pay. While Coppinger’s detesting of the online writers may be warranted to some extent, it also reflects the fact if one were to obtain everything through sources, those items would be skewed as well. Because, the sources are serving their own interests.
The key to public records is at least twofold. First, it serves as a general baseline for fighters. We are not talking about top-of-the-card fighters but the fighters starting out with their careers. Without knowledge of what other boxers are being paid, what independence do they have in negotiating with promoters. Obviously, they can sign on with an established management group that has information on pay but the overarching theme is that information is being withheld to constrain the fighter. The Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act was set up to prevent such things. As I have suggested in the past, the Ali Act could be amended to mandate the public disclosure of such information such as pay to allow fighters to see what the market is for them. And, of course, if that information is false, there would seem to be civil and/or criminal penalties associated with that misdeed.
Secondly, as a public record, the information would feasibly be considered admissible under a hearsay exception per the Rules of Evidence. Why is this relevant? If fighters ever wanted to assert their rights in court as it might relate to a bad contract, dispute with promoter or other grievance and they would need fighter purses as a means to prove information, the public record would be easier to admit than a story citing sources about fighter pay. The reason why this is true is that a story about pay contains inadmissible hearsay (i.e. information used to prove the truth of the matter asserted). You would have to obtain the source of the writer to declare the veracity of the pay. Even then, that is questionable. However, with a public record, the hearsay exception provides an easier path to use as evidence.
As a reddit user pointed out earlier this year, there was a lobby pushing for the confidentiality of pay. One may infer that this was done as a way to protect the purse information. While it may protect fighter’s privacy, it also prevents the transparency of an open market for fighters. Without knowing what everyone makes, there is not a baseline or a line to start for fighters to negotiate their contracts. There’s no known market. It creates power from managers who have access to this information through their stable of fighters and the promotion that can just arbitrarily let fighters know what the “going rate” is for an individual. If there’s something that may have been obtained from the release of emails and texts in the UFC antitrust lawsuit, we discovered how Joe Silva negotiated, or didn’t negotiate with fighters and their managers.
Even if the fighter pay disclosures are not the most accurate, it sets a baseline and a transparent showing of how much fighters are paid. We shall see if other states follow suit in the future.
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