USA Today Sports has published a review of team owners in a collection of major sports leagues, attempting to show that they are hypocrites. Instead, the outlet is once again cementing Black Lives Matter as a partisan movement.
The report starts off by noting that the politicians owners are donating to “have, in many cases, put them in direct opposition with their players’ social justice efforts.” This is to say that a majority of owners from the MLB, MLS, NBA, NFL, NHL, and WNBA donate to Republicans. It’s no slim majority either: 86% of owner donations since Jan. 1, 2019, have gone to GOP candidates.
The goal of the piece is to shame owners into ceasing donations to Republicans. It names owners who give the most to President Trump and Mitch McConnell, and it takes a victory lap citing owners who have already stopped their regular donations to Republican candidates. The piece reaches out to left-wing activists such as LeBron James and the group Color of Change.
It’s not the first time the media has gone after those in the sports world for not toeing the social justice line. Utah Jazz head coach Quin Snyder was the subject of a hit job by Utah’s largest newspaper over his donations to GOP House candidate Burgess Owens because of Owens’s position on Black Lives Matter (even though Owens himself is black). Orlando Magic forward Jonathan Isaac was also shamed for refusing to wear a BLM shirt while standing for the national anthem.
Making support of the Black Lives Matter movement a partisan issue has stunted most opportunities for the police reform that activists claim to want. How it is determined that Republicans are to blame for policing problems in Democrat-run cities in Democrat-run states is bizarre enough. It was Democrats who torpedoed a police reform bill with a real chance of passing in Congress earlier this year.
It should be no surprise when efforts like this don’t translate to any real reforms. Support for Black Lives Matter has dropped 12 points since June, including 21 points among Republicans. Even when the public clearly supported most of the reforms being proposed, the demand for conformity only served to drive away those otherwise sympathetic to the movement. This shaming effort only serves to entrench people into their partisan positions further.
