Gallup: Support For Sports Industry Plummets. Wonder Why?
The late political writer Andrew Breitbart once observed that politics lies downstream from culture. IOW: If you want to know what the issues will be in the next election check out the media, entertainment and academic temperature today.
That now includes sports. On Saturday Naomi Osaka won the US Open Women’s title. As was her habit this tournament the 22-year-old wore a customized mask bearing the name of a black person from a deadly police encounter. It didn’t go unnoticed.
The insufferable Chrissie Evert spewed that Osaka’s ”conviction for social injustice has been transferred onto the court. She's playing with conviction and belief”. (Evert never realizing that supporting #jacobblakamericanrapist to please BLM is an affront to women everywhere who are victimized by perverts like Blake.)
ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi, otherwise a professional reporter, went full Uriah Heap with questions so cloying that they could’ve been scripted. “You had seven matches, seven masks, seven names. What was the message you wanted to send?”
Osaka: "Well, what was the message you got is more the question. I feel like the point was to make people start talking.” (Too bad she didn’t start people thinking.)
Rinaldi’s media colleagues followed: “She led with her heart,” gushed Wayne Coffey in USA Today. “She wore it on her face for the seventh time in twelve days Saturday, the masks her private power source, the heart lifting her on her journey, with a racket and without.” (At this point flight attendants usually point out the air-sickness bags.)
But the heart of Osaka, who’s of Japanese/ Haitian descent, was carefully extended to only those lionized by Black Lives Matter. Nowhere in her progressive pantomime did she find a word for David Dorn, the black retired ex-cop murdered during a “peaceful protest” in St. Louis. Or any of the dozens of cops shot or injured seriously during those same riots across the U.S.
Nowhere on her designer masks was there room for the black store owners whose businesses were destroyed during #BLM street protests. Or whose neighbourhoods were burned to the ground. Or the thousands of blacks gunned down by other blacks this year. No reference to cops being 18.2 times more likely to be murdered while on duty than unarmed blacks shot by police.
That would require real courage. Not stage directions.
Nope, just Sensitivity 101 at Woke University as Chrissie Evert applauds from her perch above the crowd. And that’s just the way ESPN liked it. It was “Our narrative or the highway” in an empty stadium populated only by media and the tennis travelling circus. There was only pusillanimous praise for Osaka from the Disney echo chamber.
J.J. Watt wishes. The Houston Texans All Pro was gobsmacked when his teammates and their opponents on the Kansas City Chiefs did a “unity ceremony” before Thursday’s season opener— and were booed by some in the limited crowd allowed in attendance.
Said JJ (who is white): “The moment of unity I certainly thought was good. The booing was unfortunate. I don’t understand that. There was no flag involved, nothing other than two teams coming together to show unity.” (There was also a second “black” anthem played before the game.)
We know Watt’s been in a bubble of late, but does he honestly not know the effect that months of NFL grandees from commissioner Roger Goodell down to the ball boys blaming “white privilege” for the 2019 deaths of a dozen unarmed blacks (in a population of 37 million) has had on ordinary football fans?
After a torrent of #BLM abuse aimed at them, did he think white fans would “check their privilege” long enough to cheer one more demonstration of kabuki theatre by millionaire egomaniacs?
Luckily for him, restrictions on fans allowed at Arrowhead prevented a real head count of those who’ll put up with any agitprop just to see football. But polling by Gallup now shows a significantly drop in opinions of the sports industry. Its positive score in 2019 sat at 45 percent, but fell by a third to 30 percent in 2020. While 25 percent held a negative view of sports in 2019, that number shot up to 40 percent in 2020.
Independents’ views had a steep drop from +26 last year to -10 this year. Republican approval tumbled from +11 in 2019 to -35 in 2020. Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) dropped only a fraction in approval.
Watt’s tin ear performance followed NFL announcements that teams would allow players to wear the names on BLM’s honour roll on their helmets. Here’s a typical tweet, this one from the Buffalo Bills.
“Ahmaud Arbery.
Black Lives Matter.
It takes all of us.
Elijah McClain.
Stop hate.
Breonna Taylor.
These names and phrases will be on our players’ helmets this season. This is why it matters.”
It must’ve been a close call on whether Jussie Smollett got the nod from the Bills, too.
Also included on the NFL list of eligibles for helmet immortality is #jacobblakeamericanrapist. The New Orleans Saints— including QB Drew Brees, who once criticized kneeling during the anthem— quickly fell into line.
There’s more capitulation. According to NFL beat reporter Dan Wetzel, “The NFLs new generation of coaches have brought a new mindset on social justice efforts ... this is no longer a distraction to be avoided or ignored.”
So they glorify Blake, who breaks into a sleeping woman’s house, sexually assaults her while her child watches, steals her car, then later breaks a restraining order to harass her, resists arrest, assaults cops while carrying a knife and tries to escape with three kids in a stolen car? Are we getting that straight about the sensitivity of today’s modern coaches?
Again, no mention of honouring David Dorn, Jonathan Shoop, Ryan Hendrix, Mario Herera,, Bryant Searcy, James Skernavitz or any of the many cops killed or injured on duty so far this year.
Just a collection of radicals and their impressionable athlete pawns doing the SJW circle jerk. If this is what’s happening upstream from politics, should we be surprised when we see this from an ambush shooting of two L.A. cops on Saturday?
To the protesters blocking the entrance & exit of the HOSPITAL EMERGENCY ROOM yelling "We hope they die" referring to 2 LA Sheriff's ambushed today in #Compton: DO NOT BLOCK EMERGENCY ENTRIES & EXITS TO THE HOSPITAL. People's lives are at stake when ambulances can't get through.”
This is BLM, whom pro sports honours. It’s been a fun 50 years as an NFL fan. But enough is enough. Come kickoff time Sundays I’ll find something else to do. Thanks #rogergoodell.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his next book Personal Account with Tony Comper will be available on BruceDowbigginBooks.ca this fall.