H. R. 1832
One Hundred Sixth Congress
of the
United States of America
AT THE SECOND SESSION
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Monday,
the twenty-fourth day of January, two thousand
An Act
To reform unfair and anticompetitive practices in the professional boxing industry.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform
Act’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
The Congress makes the following findings:
(1) Professional boxing differs from other major, interstate
professional sports industries in the United States in that it
operates without any private sector association, league, or cen-
tralized industry organization to establish uniform and appro-
priate business practices and ethical standards. This has led
to repeated occurrences of disreputable and coercive business
practices in the boxing industry, to the detriment of professional
boxers nationwide.
(2) State officials are the proper regulators of professional
boxing events, and must protect the welfare of professional
boxers and serve the public interest by closely supervising
boxing activity in their jurisdiction. State boxing commissions
do not currently receive adequate information to determine
whether boxers competing in their jurisdiction are being sub-
jected to contract terms and business practices which may
violate State regulations, or are onerous and confiscatory.
(3) Promoters who engage in illegal, coercive, or unethical
business practices can take advantage of the lack of equitable
business standards in the sport by holding boxing events in
States with weaker regulatory oversight.
(4) The sanctioning organizations which have proliferated
in the boxing industry have not established credible and objec-
tive criteria to rate professional boxers, and operate with vir-
tually no industry or public oversight. Their ratings are suscep-
tible to manipulation, have deprived boxers of fair opportunities
for advancement, and have undermined public confidence in
the integrity of the sport.
(5) Open competition in the professional boxing industry
has been significantly interfered with by restrictive and anti-
competitive business practices of certain promoters and sanc-
tioning bodies, to the detriment of the athletes and the ticket-
buying public. Common practices of promoters and sanctioning
organizations represent restraints of interstate trade in the
United States.
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(6) It is necessary and appropriate to establish national
contracting reforms to protect professional boxers and prevent
exploitive business practices, and to require enhanced financial
disclosures to State athletic commissions to improve the public
oversight of the sport.
SEC. 3. PURPOSES.
The purposes of this Act are—
(1) to protect the rights and welfare of professional boxers
on an interstate basis by preventing certain exploitive, oppres-
sive, and unethical business practices;
(2) to assist State boxing commissions in their efforts to
provide more effective public oversight of the sport; and
(3) to promote honorable competition in professional boxing
and enhance the overall integrity of the industry.
SEC. 4. PROTECTING BOXERS FROM EXPLOITATION.
The Professional Boxing Safety Act of 1996 (15 U.S.C. 6301
et seq.) is amended—
(1) by redesignating sections 9 through 15 as sections 17
through 23, respectively; and
(2) by inserting after section 8 the following new sections:
‘‘SEC. 9. CONTRACT REQUIREMENTS.
‘‘Within 2 years after the date of the enactment of the
Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, the Association of Boxing
Commissions (ABC) shall develop and shall approve by a vote
of no less than a majority of its member State boxing commissioners,
guidelines for minimum contractual provisions that should be
included in bout agreements and boxing contracts. It is the sense
of the Congress that State boxing commissions should follow these
ABC guidelines.
‘‘SEC. 10. PROTECTION FROM COERCIVE CONTRACTS.
‘‘(a) GENERAL RULE.—
‘‘(1)(A) A contract provision shall be considered to be in
restraint of trade, contrary to public policy, and unenforceable
against any boxer to the extent that it—
‘‘(i) is a coercive provision described in subparagraph
(B) and is for a period greater than 12 months; or
‘‘(ii) is a coercive provision described in subparagraph
(B) and the other boxer under contract to the promoter
came under that contract pursuant to a coercive provision
described in subparagraph (B).
‘‘(B) A coercive provision described in this subparagraph
is a contract provision that grants any rights between a boxer
and a promoter, or between promoters with respect to a boxer,
if the boxer is required to grant such rights, or a boxer’s
promoter is required to grant such rights with respect to a
boxer to another promoter, as a condition precedent to the
boxer’s participation in a professional boxing match against
another boxer who is under contract to the promoter.
‘‘(2) This subsection shall only apply to contracts entered
into after the date of the enactment of the Muhammad Ali
Boxing Reform Act.
‘‘(3) No subsequent contract provision extending any rights
or compensation covered in paragraph (1) shall be enforceable
against a boxer if the effective date of the contract containing
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such provision is earlier than 3 months before the expiration
of the relevant time period set forth in paragraph (1).
‘‘(b) PROMOTIONAL RIGHTS UNDER MANDATORY BOUT CON-
TRACTS.—No boxing service provider may require a boxer to grant
any future promotional rights as a requirement of competing in
a professional boxing match that is a mandatory bout under the
rules of a sanctioning organization.
‘‘(c) PROTECTION
FROM COERCIVE CONTRACTS
WITH BROAD-
CASTERS.—Subsection (a) of this section applies to any contract
between a commercial broadcaster and a boxer, or granting any
rights with respect to that boxer, involving a broadcast in or
affecting interstate commerce, regardless of the broadcast medium.
For the purpose of this subsection, any reference in subsection
(a)(1)(B) to ‘promoter’ shall be considered a reference to ‘commercial
broadcaster’.
‘‘SEC. 11. SANCTIONING ORGANIZATIONS.
‘‘(a) OBJECTIVE CRITERIA.—Within 2 years after the date of
the enactment of the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act, the
Association of Boxing Commissions shall develop and shall approve
by a vote of no less than a majority of its member State boxing
commissioners, guidelines for objective and consistent written cri-
teria for the ratings of professional boxers. It is the sense of the
Congress that sanctioning bodies and State boxing commissions
should follow these ABC guidelines.
‘‘(b) APPEALS PROCESS.—A sanctioning organization shall not
be entitled to receive any compensation, directly or indirectly, in
connection with a boxing match, until it provides the boxers with
notice that the sanctioning organization shall, within 7 days after
receiving a request from a boxer questioning that organization’s
rating of the boxer—
‘‘(1) provide to the boxer a written explanation of the
organization’s criteria, its rating of the boxer, and the rationale
or basis for its rating (including a response to any specific
questions submitted by the boxer); and
‘‘(2) submit a copy of its explanation to the Association
of Boxing Commissions.
‘‘(c) NOTIFICATION
OF
CHANGE
IN
RATING.—A sanctioning
organization shall not be entitled to receive any compensation,
directly or indirectly, in connection with a boxing match, until,
with respect to a change in the rating of a boxer previously rated
by such organization in the top 10 boxers, the organization—
‘‘(1) posts a copy, within 7 days of such change, on its
Internet website or home page, if any, including an explanation
of such change, for a period of not less than 30 days; and
‘‘(2) provides a copy of the rating change and explanation
to an association to which at least a majority of the State
boxing commissions belong.
‘‘(d) PUBLIC DISCLOSURE.—
‘‘(1) FEDERAL
TRADE
COMMISSION
FILING.—A sanctioning
organization shall not be entitled to receive any compensation
directly or indirectly in connection with a boxing match unless,
not later than January 31 of each year, it submits to the
Federal Trade Commission and to the ABC—
‘‘(A) a complete description of the organization’s ratings
criteria, policies, and general sanctioning fee schedule;
‘‘(B) the bylaws of the organization;
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‘‘(C) the appeals procedure of the organization for a
boxer’s rating; and
‘‘(D) a list and business address of the organization’s
officials who vote on the ratings of boxers.
‘‘(2) FORMAT; UPDATES.—A sanctioning organization shall—
‘‘(A) provide the information required under paragraph
(1) in writing, and, for any document greater than 2 pages
in length, also in electronic form; and
‘‘(B) promptly notify the Federal Trade Commission
of any material change in the information submitted.
‘‘(3) FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION TO MAKE INFORMATION
AVAILABLE TO PUBLIC.—The Federal Trade Commission shall
make information received under this subsection available to
the public. The Commission may assess sanctioning organiza-
tions a fee to offset the costs it incurs in processing the informa-
tion and making it available to the public.
‘‘(4) INTERNET
ALTERNATIVE.—In lieu of submitting the
information required by paragraph (1) to the Federal Trade
Commission, a sanctioning organization may provide the
information to the public by maintaining a website on the
Internet that—
‘‘(A) is readily accessible by the general public using
generally available search engines and does not require
a password or payment of a fee for full access to all the
information;
‘‘(B) contains all the information required to be sub-
mitted to the Federal Trade Commission by paragraph
(1) in an easy to search and use format; and
‘‘(C) is updated whenever there is a material change
in the information.
‘‘SEC. 12. REQUIRED DISCLOSURES TO STATE BOXING COMMISSIONS
BY SANCTIONING ORGANIZATIONS.
‘‘A sanctioning organization shall not be entitled to receive
any compensation directly or indirectly in connection with a boxing
match until it provides to the boxing commission responsible for
regulating the match in a State a statement of—
‘‘(1) all charges, fees, and costs the organization will assess
any boxer participating in that match;
‘‘(2) all payments, benefits, complimentary benefits, and
fees the organization will receive for its affiliation with the
event, from the promoter, host of the event, and all other
sources; and
‘‘(3) such additional information as the commission may
require.
‘‘SEC. 13. REQUIRED DISCLOSURES FOR PROMOTERS.
‘‘(a) DISCLOSURES TO THE BOXING COMMISSIONS.—A promoter
shall not be entitled to receive any compensation directly or
indirectly in connection with a boxing match until it provides to
the boxing commission responsible for regulating the match in
a State a statement of—
‘‘(1) a copy of any agreement in writing to which the pro-
moter is a party with any boxer participating in the match;
‘‘(2) a statement made under penalty of perjury that there
are no other agreements, written or oral, between the promoter
and the boxer with respect to that match; and