BOXING / EARL GUSTKEY : State Budget Puts Game on the Ropes

The most significant boxing activity in California this week and next will occur in Sacramento, in the state legislature.

Richard DeCuir, executive officer of the State Athletic Commission, will be bobbing and weaving and maybe throwing a punch or two in his search for legislative support of a measure that he says is needed to save boxing in this state.

Professional boxing in California could be facing the end of the road. Both DeCuir and his boss, commission Chairman Bill Eastman, say it’s no bluff; that they will close down the sport if they don’t find a new revenue source, quickly.

The immediate goal is to create a state tax on pay-per-view boxing shows beamed into California.

Background:

--Gov. Pete Wilson’s 1993-94 state budget asks the boxing commission to take a $200,000 cut.

--Responded DeCuir: “If we have to do that, then we’ll close down. It would mean we would have no funds to do what we’re supposed to do. And if we’re out of business, boxing is out of business. Boxing would become an outlaw activity.”

--Last year, in response to state budget cuts, the commission closed its Los Angeles office and fired four employees. The remaining staff, in Sacramento, consists of DeCuir, assistant executive officer Rob Lynch and 4 1/2 clerical positions.

Abuses in the sport are going unchecked. In normal times, commission-hired inspectors check boxing gyms throughout the state to see if everyone has a license. They are also supposed to make sure experienced pros aren’t sparring with 15-year-old amateurs.

Today, anything goes, and as many see it, the clock ticks toward a tragedy.

“Given the number of gyms California has, the high number of boxers we have and the fact no one is inspecting those gyms, it’s only a matter of time before some kid is killed in a gym,” said onetime commission gym inspector Dale Ashley, who was laid off last year.

How did boxing regulation in the state get to this point?

“It’s hard to imagine California, a state that year after year has more boxing shows than any other state, having these kinds of problems,” said Dan Goossen, one of the state’s most prominent promoters.

The commission finds itself broke because of poor management in the 1980s, when in fat times plans should have been made for lean, underfunded days ahead. In the good years, the legislature subsidized the commission.

Someone should have figured: “It won’t always be this way.”

Now, because it never aggressively sought independent funding, or ways to support itself, pro boxing is on the ropes.

The commission is trying to enact immediate, steep hikes in its license fees--for which it also needs legislative approval--as a stopgap measure to help it survive.

If that doesn’t work, and if no pay-per-view tax is enacted, it’s over, commissioners believe.

The penal code, DeCuir reiterated, requires the state to regulate boxing, so if the commission is dissolved, boxing would become illegal.

Fee increases would not solve the commission staff’s long-term financial outlook.

A California boxer’s license fee is $25 and was last raised, from $20, in 1982. DeCuir proposes raising it to $60.

The $60 manager’s license fee is scheduled to be raised to $250, DeCuir added. Two other fees facing steep increases include licenses for matchmakers, presently $100, and judges and referees, now $60.

The commission also licenses boxing gym owners, seconds and timekeepers.

“Our licensing generated about $70,000 in revenue last year,” DeCuir said. “We’d like to get that number up to about $150,000. That would help a lot.”

Two major California boxing promoters, John Jackson at the Forum and Goossen, who heads Ten Goose Boxing in Van Nuys, support increased licensing fees--including their own--to offer the commission immediate relief.

“Right now, (the commission needs) to dog paddle long enough to stay afloat, and I think raising fees will help,” Goossen said. “Since I’ve been in boxing, over 10 years, all those fees have remained the same.

“They’re right when they tell us boxing is in serious trouble in California, but I’m confident they can overcome these problems.”

Jackson, whose twice-monthly Forum shows provide about half of the commission’s revenue, said fee increases are an obvious solution.

“I think the commission should raise all the fees, from the boxer licenses right up to the promoter licenses,” he said.

One long-term solution, favored by many, is a state tax on pay-per-view boxing cards transmitted into California. Such shows can generate revenue up to $75 million.

The subject of a pay-per-view boxing tax, Jackson said, is a difficult one for the Forum, whose boxing shows are televised by Prime Ticket, a cable network.

“If we were to take a stand on that,” he said, “it would create problems for us. But I will say it’s one possible source of revenue.”

Such a tax measure was introduced last year in Sacramento but was killed by cable lobbyists, according to commission staff members.

Nevada has such a tax, which applies to all pay-per-view bouts as well as other cable shows, such as HBO’s and ESPN’s. The tax assures the Nevada Athletic Commission of at least $50,000 for every boxing telecast from which a promoter earns at least $2 million.

“The tax gives us 3% of the first million dollars of the promoter’s return and 1% (of the first two) million, so the maximum is $50,000,” said Sandy Johnson, management office assistant for Nevada’s commission.

“So even though the (Evander) Holyfield-(Riddick) Bowe fight made millions of dollars, we still got only $50,000 from the promoter. We’ll also get $50,000 from (tonight’s George) Foreman/(Tommy) Morrison show in Reno.”

The Nevada commission earned about $1.5 million from its TV boxing tax last year.

California’s DeCuir said: “We told the legislature last year when our cable bill was introduced that we absolutely must have this alternate source of revenue, and it fell on deaf ears. Now we’re showing them the numbers . . . exactly where we are.”

Said Eastman, who is also the police chief in Pleasanton, Calif.: “The Nevada commission could not get a cable tax passed in California. The cable lobby in Sacramento has a lot of clout. When we tried to get our bill passed last year, the cable lobby slam-dunked us.”

Why haven’t licensing fees been increased since 1982?

“Because the commission was subsidized all that time by the legislature,” DeCuir said.

“Now, they’re telling us we have to live off what we make, after they turned us down on that cable tax bill.”

Former commission member Raoul Silva of Garden Grove said he proposed a cable tax in 1989.

“I was told it couldn’t be done, that the cable lobby was too strong,” he said. “And they were right, as it turned out. But the commission really is in serious financial shape. They’re not blowing smoke about that.”

Boxing Notes

Dan Goossen won’t confirm it, but the rumor is he will soon announce that his Ten Goose Boxing operation in Van Nuys will move to downtown Los Angeles. One reason: It would put the operation closer to its next venue, the remodeled Olympic Auditorium. Olympic update: The new roof has been completed, and exterior painting will begin soon. About 10,000 new theater seats are on the way.

Oscar De La Hoya’s East Coast debut is set for Feb. 23, when he fights a yet-to-be-named opponent in Rochester, N.Y. Las Vegas manager Akbar Muhammad said his very talented Frank Pena probably will be an opponent for De La Hoya in the future. “Frank and Oscar are on a collision course, no doubt about it,” Muhammad said. Waiting in the wings could be the biggest Los Angeles fight in a decade or more--De La Hoya vs. Ten Goose’s Rafael Ruelas. But at the pace De La Hoya’s co-managers are bringing him along, that might not happen until after the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. . . . De La Hoya’s Olympic teammate, Pepe Reilly, has decided to turn pro after all. Discouraged at being eliminated in the second round of the preliminaries at Barcelona last summer, Reilly said he would enroll at Glendale City College. But now he and his father, Fred Reilly, are interviewing prospective trainers for the hard-hitting welterweight.