MMA and Bad Publicity

The San Diego Union-Tribune recently published a database that details the arrests of nearly 500 active National Football League players since the year 2000 and I thought it might serve as the basis for an interesting discussion.

MMA is often heavily criticized when a member of its community gets into trouble: Rampage Jackson, War Machine, Leonard Garcia, and most recently, Tito Ortiz, have all had run-ins with the law. Those run-ins have often led to panic as fans and members of the media alike question whether MMA can afford these kinds of mistakes. Yet, the reality is that it hasn’t experienced near the problems that other professional sports have.

While MMA is in a more precarious regulatory position than other sports, the point still stands that these things happen to everyone.


http://www.signonsandiego.com/nfl/arrests-database/