106TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 1832
AN ACT
To reform unfair and anticompetitive practices in
the professional boxing industry.
106TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 1832
AN ACT
To reform unfair and anticompetitive practices in the
professional boxing industry.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives 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 centralized in-
dustry 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 wel-
fare of professional boxers and serve the public in-
terest by closely supervising boxing activity in their
jurisdiction. State boxing commissions do not cur-
rently receive adequate information to determine
whether boxers competing in their jurisdiction are
being subjected to contract terms and business prac-
tices which may violate State regulations, or are on-
erous 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 estab-
lished credible and objective criteria to rate profes-
sional boxers, and operate with virtually no industry
or public oversight. Their ratings are susceptible to
manipulation, have deprived boxers of fair opportu-
nities 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 re-
strictive and anticompetitive business practices of
certain promoters and sanctioning bodies, to the det-
riment of the athletes and the ticket-buying public.
Common practices of promoters and sanctioning or-
ganizations represent restraints of interstate trade
in the United States.
(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 profes-
sional boxers on an interstate basis by preventing
certain exploitive, oppressive, 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 profes-
sional 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 shall develop and shall approve by
a vote of no less than a majority of its member State box-
ing 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 con-
tract pursuant to a coercive provision described
in subparagraph (B).
‘‘(B) A coercive provision described in this sub-
paragraph 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 re-
quired 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 con-
tracts entered into after the date of the enactment
of the Muhammad Ali Boxing Reform Act.
‘‘(3) No subsequent contract provision extend-
ing any rights or compensation covered in paragraph
(1) shall be enforceable against a boxer if the effec-
tive date of the contract containing 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 CONTRACTS.—No boxing service provider may re-
quire 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.
‘‘SEC. 11. SANCTIONING ORGANIZATIONS.
‘‘(a) OBJECTIVE CRITERIA.—Within 2 years after the
date of the enactment of the Muhammad Ali Boxing Re-
form Act, the Association of Boxing Commissions shall de-
velop and shall approve by a vote of no less than a major-
ity of its member State boxing commissioners, guidelines
for objective and consistent written criteria 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 orga-
nization 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 As-
sociation 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,