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On Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced an agreement with Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), a mixed-martial arts sports company, to create a public-private partnership for “sports diplomacy” efforts across the globe.
Ostensibly, the agreement would be similar to other sports diplomacy partnerships, such as one the White House struck with the NFL, that use sports to promote the United States around the world. But the new partnership renews concerns about possible conflicts of interest between the franchise and President Donald Trump, who purchased up to $50,000 in stocks in UFC’s parent company, TKO Holdings, in May.
Additionally, the partnership comes as the UFC is planning to hold an event on the White House South Lawn this weekend. The promotion of that event, advertising and sponsorship deals, and VIP ticket sales costing up to $1.5 million could net a large profit for UFC and its shareholders.
The event, titled “UFC Freedom 250,” will take place on June 14. While it is being billed as part of the country’s 250th birthday celebrations, the event also coincides with Trump’s 80th birthday.
At the signing event, Rubio claimed that the U.S. partnership with UFC was meant to bridge divides.
“We are so divided by so many different things…there are only a handful of things that bring people together in one place at one time, united by their interest in one thing,” Rubio said.
In a message on its website, the State Department also said that:
UFC athletes and coaches will serve as sports ambassadors through the Department of State’s Sports Envoy program, which will include leading training clinics for young international athletes.
Rubio absurdly compared past American achievements, including the moon landing, to the UFC event set to happen this weekend.
Describing the U.S. as an “audacious” nation, Rubio remarked how we “put a man on the moon,” and how “no one thought that was possible.”
“We are a nation founded on doing what no one else dared to do. At some level, that’s what this whole company, UFC, has been,” Rubio said immediately after.
Rubio is correct that the UFC event is bridging divides, but not in the way that he suggests, as Americans are largely upset with the promotion.
A YouGov poll conducted earlier this month finds that, by nearly a 2 to 1 margin, Americans disapprove of the UFC White House event. Another Reuters/Ipsos poll finds that just 16 percent of Americans describe the event as being “appropriate,” with 46 percent saying it is “inappropriate” to host the UFC fight on the White House grounds.
Despite the deep unpopularity of the event, Rubio described it on Thursday as being a “gift to the American people.” He added that “The Claw,” the massive arena in which the event will take place, could remain a permanent fixture at the White House, referencing a suggestion Trump made earlier this month.
“The president has threatened to leave it permanently. You heard that, right? Maybe we’ll just host weekly fights between people in politics,” Rubio joked.
The event, as well as the construction of The Claw, is on shaky legal grounds.
A lawsuit urging the cancellation of the event is unlikely to succeed, given that it’s set to happen in just two days. But the arguments contained within the suit note that the match hasn’t been authorized by Congress, and that federal law prohibits sporting events from happening on lands administered by the National Park Service, which includes the White House and the Lincoln Memorial, where a pre-match event is set to occur.
“The President arranged to hand two of America’s most cherished monuments to a private corporation so he and his allies could profit from them. That is corruption,” said civic activist Susan Douglas, one of the plaintiffs named in the lawsuit. “These monuments belong to all of us Americans, not to [UFC CEO] Dana White, not to advertisers like Crypto.com, and not to Donald Trump.”
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