Ben Fowlkes over at thescore.ca claims that the Dana White and the UFC treats it’s athlete’s use of performance enhancing drugs the same way my boss treats my use of marijuana at work. They may turn a blind eye to the usage even if they smell something funny, but if we get caught by an outside party look out. Self righteousness will reign.
In the end the UFC is following suit with the other major league corporations. PED’s make their products better. But the usage of them is seen by the law as wrong and therefore bad for business.
Major League Baseball enjoyed the usage of steriods through the 1990′s and 2000′s as baseball left the park at record rates and players stayed and excelled playing the game long after their contemporaries from another era were either long gone from the playing field or batting below the mendoza line, well before the average .200 had a name.
But when steriods became too hard to hide any longer and baseball players linked to PED’s became as long or longer than the list of players not linked MLB had no choice but to crack down on detectable steriod usage.
Part of that result for MLB is that the past two World Series (’09, ’10) have had the lowest television ratings in years….something that Dana White and the UFC definitely don’t want.