Badou Jack and James DeGale will meet on January 14 in Brooklyn; pending the show can get an insurance carrier after recent legislation made it pricier to run shows in the Empire State, according to Dan Rafael of espn.com.
The espn.com article said When mixed martial arts was legalized in New York, the law, which was recently implemented, included new insurance regulations for combat sports that would dramatically increase the premiums promoters must pay to run a boxing card.
Minimum coverage went from $10,000 to $50,000 for general medical coverage per fighter on each card, a change that most promoters had no issue with and that conforms to the norm in many other states. But the law also requires an unprecedented $1 million minimum requirement for each fighter in the event the fighter suffers a traumatic brain injury, a very rare occurrence. New York promoters have complained that the added cost would all but eliminate club-level cards, although bigger cards, such as the Jack-DeGale one, could more easily absorb the additional costs.
However, no insurance policy has yet been approved by New York that would allow boxing events to legally take place in the state, and it remains unclear whether one will be approved by Jan. 14. Promoter Lou DiBella said he knows there is a risk announcing the venue for the event without a guarantee the insurance issue will be settled by then.
“We taking this head on,” DiBella told ESPN. “But we’re moving ahead for 2017 on the expectation that the powers that be in New York state will have a policy available for us for Jan. 14. We’re also optimistic that the bigger issues will be resolved in a way that will allow both big-time boxing and grass-roots boxing to resume in the state of New York. It’s unthinkable that this law was passed when
“There is no policy available yet,” DiBella said. “Promoters continue to have meetings with insurers, but any policy has to be sent to New York for approval. The commission has had talks with insurers and policies were sent, or a policy was sent, to the state, but it was not approved.
“How do you enact a law where there is no legal way for an industry to abide by it? Something incomprehensible went on here.”
“Floyd is out in Vegas, but his attitude is, ‘We’re willing to take a risk to help New York fighters and New York boxing with this card,'” DiBella said. “I give Mayweather Promotions credit for stepping into a situation where they could have just done this fight in Las Vegas and called it a day.”
