When you have an entire sports network that barely talks about sports anymore, it was only a matter of time before that same network would applaud athletes for joining them, and refusing to talk about sports as well.
That moment, sadly, is upon us.
On Friday’s edition of ESPN’s Around the Horn, host Tony Reali led his merry band of Jockular-Trotskyites (with the exception of New York Daily News writer Frank Isola) down the path of political advocacy in sports. In light of the NBA’s decision to pull the 2017 All-Star Game out of North Carolina due to that state’s Transgender bathroom law, and, as a result of post-game interviews after a WNBA game Thursday night. Where the players answered no questions about the game, and instead only talked about Black Lives Mattered.
What followed was…well…awful:
But why not? If North Carolina is so morally reprehensible and irretrievably recalcitrant, then why not pull the Hornets out of Charlotte? Could it be that the league is a tad more worried about losing revenue from the 41 home games that they receive from the Hornets every year, than they are about being “down for the struggle?”
I mean, surely no one would suggest that the NBA was thinking about anything other than the welfare of the LGBT community when they pulled the All Star game out of Charlotte. While at the same time fighting to expand their brand name and marketing footprint in China. A country that has one of the worst human rights records since the Caligula Administration.
No, no one would suggest that.
Also funny is LA Times writer Bill Plaschke’s assertion that the best way to deal with people who are “narrow-minded” is for the league to pull up stakes and leave North Carolina. Because, taking your ball and going home when others don’t agree with you is not narrow-minded?
Watching leftist activists on ESPN struggle to come to grips with defeat is fun. I hope to watch a whole lot more of it.
