There is an appetite in Airdrie to see combative sports events like boxing and mixed martial arts.

That finding was part of this year's Citizen Satisfaction Survey, and was presented to City Council on Monday (June 5).

During the presentation, City Clerk Sharon Pollyck explained that the finding came from a statistically significant sample size of 400 randomly selected participants.

"There were 20 percent that were likely or most likely to attend a combative sporting event. That works out to be about just over 4600 households here in Airdrie. That actually would more than fill any venue we would have currently in place."

Based on the finding, Staff recommended to Council to move forward with a process to create a combative sports commission in Airdrie. Pollyck explained that that would be a governing body for those types of events.

"Their role is actually to set the rules under which an event could take place. They actually monitor the event, make sure there's compliance and oversee the event."

There are two routes the City could take to create a combative sports commission.

"The first one would be that we would approach Calgary to see if they'd be willing to include us within their boundaries for combative sports," explained Pollyck. "And then the second one was to include provision for the cost of establishing a commission in the budget for 2018."

Pollyck said the budget provision would be a Plan B if Calgary is not willing to expand their boundaries. She was careful to explain that that does not mean it will necessarily be included in the budget, but it will be considered during deliberations. However, Council did express broad support for the establishment of a combative sports commission.

 

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