Time to Take Control
Dana White wishes that there were no performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in UFC. It is a scandal he doesn't want. They cost him money that could be used for other things. Fights cancel that fans want to see.
The problem is that performance enhancing drugs aren't going away. Professional athletes are as paranoid as they are competitive. Many fighters use. Most fighters believe that other fighters are using. Some fighters just want an edge and don't care. Whatever the case, they're here to stay.
History has taught us that anti-doping measures are an endless cat-and-mouse game. The 1988 Olympic 100 meter final was called the dirtiest sporting event of all time in an ESPN documentary. When analyzed years after the race, every sprinter's urine sample was found to contain some type of PED. The 2012 Olympic 100 meter final saw nobody test positive, but would anyone be surprised if a test done ten years from now found those samples dirty?
The status quo is to keep playing the game. Find a new test. Catch a few fighters. Wait for new drugs to be discovered. Find a new test again. The only thing changing is the reach. Instead of testing for the show, now fighters test during training. Soon it might be year-round. In the future it could be every day.
Imagine MMA with daily drug testing.
On the day a fighter signs a contract, he gives a UFC functionary his itinerary for the week. Every morning the fighter wakes up, draws a vial of blood and leaves it in a refrigerated drop box on his porch. The vials get picked up and tested, and the process repeats the next day.
What a future that could be. Jobs are created for vial collectors. Testing labs get as much work as they can handle. The FiveThirtyEight.com blog can create a statistical model that predicts fight performance based on rising or falling estrogen levels.
There is an unanswered question in all of this: Is this good? Most people agree that sports should be fair. Most agree that an athlete's health should be protected. That is why drug testing was born. Is that still, however, the goal?
UFC should be asking those questions. They should be questioning the status quo. A UFC representative should wonder aloud why doctors aren't allowed to determine whether PEDs are good or bad for a fighter's health. Someone from the company should go on television and ask whether it's still unfair to use PEDs if testosterone levels are kept within certain limits.
Maybe the public wants strict testing. Maybe the line between Tylenol and Winstrol is drawn at testosterone. Maybe the doctors will say that taking any drug that raises testosterone levels is a risk, and that the use of PEDs allows fighters with naturally low testosterone levels an unfair advantage against fighters who were blessed with high T. If that's the case, then the status quo remains. Testosterone remains a no-no.
The attitude from UFC has always been, "we'll leave it to the commissions". That needs to change. If UFC beefs up its internal testing so that fighters are tested like football players, the commission will back off. Travis Tygart -- the U.S. anti-doping agency CEO who draws more annual income than all but a handful of fighters -- might be unhappy, but the public would accept it.
Year-round random testing for all contracted UFC fighters would be expensive, but at the moment it's the company's best move. It's a salvo against commissions and testing organizations looking to expand their reach, and it's an outreach to those fans and journalists who believe in preventing PED use. It also provides flexibility. In football, the NFL decides what penalty PED use warrants. UFC would love to have that control right about now.
The problem is that performance enhancing drugs aren't going away. Professional athletes are as paranoid as they are competitive. Many fighters use. Most fighters believe that other fighters are using. Some fighters just want an edge and don't care. Whatever the case, they're here to stay.
History has taught us that anti-doping measures are an endless cat-and-mouse game. The 1988 Olympic 100 meter final was called the dirtiest sporting event of all time in an ESPN documentary. When analyzed years after the race, every sprinter's urine sample was found to contain some type of PED. The 2012 Olympic 100 meter final saw nobody test positive, but would anyone be surprised if a test done ten years from now found those samples dirty?
The status quo is to keep playing the game. Find a new test. Catch a few fighters. Wait for new drugs to be discovered. Find a new test again. The only thing changing is the reach. Instead of testing for the show, now fighters test during training. Soon it might be year-round. In the future it could be every day.
Imagine MMA with daily drug testing.
On the day a fighter signs a contract, he gives a UFC functionary his itinerary for the week. Every morning the fighter wakes up, draws a vial of blood and leaves it in a refrigerated drop box on his porch. The vials get picked up and tested, and the process repeats the next day.
What a future that could be. Jobs are created for vial collectors. Testing labs get as much work as they can handle. The FiveThirtyEight.com blog can create a statistical model that predicts fight performance based on rising or falling estrogen levels.
There is an unanswered question in all of this: Is this good? Most people agree that sports should be fair. Most agree that an athlete's health should be protected. That is why drug testing was born. Is that still, however, the goal?
UFC should be asking those questions. They should be questioning the status quo. A UFC representative should wonder aloud why doctors aren't allowed to determine whether PEDs are good or bad for a fighter's health. Someone from the company should go on television and ask whether it's still unfair to use PEDs if testosterone levels are kept within certain limits.
Maybe the public wants strict testing. Maybe the line between Tylenol and Winstrol is drawn at testosterone. Maybe the doctors will say that taking any drug that raises testosterone levels is a risk, and that the use of PEDs allows fighters with naturally low testosterone levels an unfair advantage against fighters who were blessed with high T. If that's the case, then the status quo remains. Testosterone remains a no-no.
The attitude from UFC has always been, "we'll leave it to the commissions". That needs to change. If UFC beefs up its internal testing so that fighters are tested like football players, the commission will back off. Travis Tygart -- the U.S. anti-doping agency CEO who draws more annual income than all but a handful of fighters -- might be unhappy, but the public would accept it.
Year-round random testing for all contracted UFC fighters would be expensive, but at the moment it's the company's best move. It's a salvo against commissions and testing organizations looking to expand their reach, and it's an outreach to those fans and journalists who believe in preventing PED use. It also provides flexibility. In football, the NFL decides what penalty PED use warrants. UFC would love to have that control right about now.
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