Commandant Gen. Jim Amos can expect to receive a letter from some unhappy veterans calling on the Marine Corps to sever its ties with the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
The veterans committee of a union group, Unite Here, is not happy about the money the Corps has spent on sponsorship and partnered recruiting videos with the UFC. But they’re not stopping with just the Corps. They’re supporting a full ban on military spending on professional sports.
The group has compiled a video montage highlighting what it perceives as the UFC’s bad behavior. The video shows footage of fighters making sexually charged comments toward female reporters, sometimes even touching them inappropriately while doing so. The video can be viewed at UnfitForTheCorps.org.
“There’s a huge effort at the highest level of command in the Navy and Marine Corps to promote a zero-tolerance policy for sexual assault within the ranks of the armed forces,” Pat Lamborn, director of recruiting and training with the union group, told Marine Corps Times. “We hold champion basketball and football players accountable because they’re public figures. Marines are also held accountable for their behavior, so why aren’t these guys?”
Marine Corps Recruiting Command has teamed up over the past three years with the UFC on commercials highlighting the warrior spirit connection between the two organizations. UFC viewers are the MCRC’s target audience for potential enlisted and officer recruit prospects.
The issues presented by the union group about a handful of competitors and leaders are an area of concern that has been addressed with the UFC, said Maj. John Caldwell, an MCRC spokesman.
“We are monitoring the issue and continuously evaluate the effectiveness of our advertising and lead generation partnerships,” he said. “If corrective action is not implemented, we reserve the option to respond accordingly.”
The union represents 250,000 workers in the hotel, gaming, food service, manufacturing, textile, distribution, laundry and airport industries. It plans to deliver 5,000 petitions to recruiting stations in seven cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington. And it’s not the first time the group has criticized those tied to the UFC.
The owners of the UFC, brothers Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, own Station Casinos in Las Vegas. Unite Here has about 60,000 members based there, according to Lamborn. The group’s Vegas affiliate, Culinary Workers Union Local 226, has blasted the brothers for the anti-union management of their casinos.
In 2010, the culinary workers group filed 201 charges against the casinos after they said workers’ attempts to unionize were squelched. Most of the charges were dismissed following a seven-month trial that ended in May 2011, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. The union group had tried for 15 years, without success, to organize 13,000 Station employees, the Review-Journal reported.
The call to cut the funding also coincides with the Army’s recent decision to end its decade-long sponsorship of NASCAR following pressure from lawmakers to stop defense spending on sports sponsorship.
The UFC could not be reached immediately for comment.
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