Every Sports Team Must Change Its Name

Daniel Greenfield’s article “Every Sports Team Must Change Its Name” highlights the insanity of this craze to re-name sports teams.  And of course it won’t stop with sports teams.  Mr. Greenfield begins:

Every name is racist. Every name must change.

The Washington Redskins agreed to change a name that offended no one except white leftists, but the media, which always speaks with forked tongue, is demanding more sports scalps.

The Cleveland Indians have issued a statement whining that "the recent social unrest... has only underscored the need for us to keep improving as an organization on issues of social justice."

Remember when the Indians were just known for being cursed with the second-longest championship drought in sports, now they can be cursed for their commitment to social justice.

The curse used to be known as the Curse of Chief Wahoo, but he's already been purged for political incorrectness. And now the Indians announced that they're "committed to engaging our community and appropriate stakeholders to determine the best path forward with regard to our team name.” Those stakeholders won't be their fans or anyone who knows what baseball is.

. . .

Some media editorialist will, eventually, link the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Southern cavalier mythos and accuse them of white supremacy. The English Civil War would seem to have little to do with a Cleveland team, but King Charles I was involved in the African slave trade.

“The name Cleveland Cavaliers represents a group of daring fearless men, whose life's pact was never surrender, no matter what the odds,” the fan who won a contest to name the team wrote.

We’ll see how long that lasts.

. . .

The simplest solution might be for every team to change its name to Black Lives Matter.

And when the Pittsburgh Heinz Black Lives Matters play the New York MetLife Black Lives Matters, it’ll be a little bit confusing, but that’s okay because no one will be watching.

Read the full article here.

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Another reason to change the channel

 image credit: getty images.com

Reported by Pradhan Muthanna at International Business Times:

LeBron James and Stephen Curry may be bitter rivals when on court but the duo are in agreement when it comes to neither of their teams — the Cleveland Cavaliers or the Golden State Warriors — visiting the White House when one of them wins the NBA Championship in 2018.

The Cavaliers’ shooting guard was speaking on the day the Philadelphia Eagles were supposed to commemorate their Super Bowl win by visiting the White House. The visit was cancelled by President Donald Trump while he had the White House also accuse the players that were planning to skip the event of abandoning their fans.

James made it clear they have no intention of visiting the White House should his team win the NBA Finals and is certain the Warriors — their finals opponent for the fourth straight year — will also not be interested in making the trip to Washington.

"I mean, I know no matter who wins this series, no one wants the invite, anyways, so," James said, as quoted by Business Insider. “It won't be Golden State or Cleveland going."

This is particularly sad since we learned the other day from Money that, among other positive metrics, “black unemployment rate fell to 5.9% in May — the lowest since the government started keeping track in 1972.” That's good news. 

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A Good News Day

art credit: pinterest

President Trump announced that the United States is withdrawing from the Paris Climate Treaty. Time to pop a cork. Another campaign promise kept.

Conservative Treehouse has the video of the President’s announcement today in the Rose Garden. 

Meanwhile, Steven Hayward at PowerLine blog is monitoring the liberal splodey heads in his aptly titled “Let the Hysteria Begin.” Check in for updates.

And tonight at 9, the Cavs meet the Warriors in the finals. Go Cavs.

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Is the Professional Sporting Event Ticket You Buy Really Yours? Nope!

Now that the election is over and our groups have had a chance to regroup from the election season there is an issue that may not be on your radar, but deserves some serious attention. 

Did you know that most ticket companies, team owners, venues, and artists they work with don’t believe that the ticket you buy to their event actually belongs to you? As a fan, a ticket, like any other product you buy should carry with it inherent ownership rights, including the right to sell, give away, or donate that ticket. When you purchase a ticket, the ticket becomes your property. Once you buy it, you own it!

A recent op-ed by Cleveland State University Law professor Christopher Sagers exposes some of the most egregious acts by the highly subsidized NFL and NBA franchises in Cleveland. Serial government handout seeker, and owner of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, Dan Gilbert, and convicted fraudster and Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, are two of the biggest abusers of Cleveland taxpayers.

The article mentions several examples of anti-competitive practices that are anti-free market and place undue restrictions against ticket owners. For example, the Cleveland Browns impose an arbitrary price floor on its affiliated resale website, Ticketmaster’s TicketExchange.

The use of a hidden price floor on the official resale site of the Browns should concern taxpayers in Cleveland and around Ohio. The Cleveland Browns stadium is owned by the city of Cleveland and leased to the team. Taxpayers have contributed heavily to the upkeep and renovation of the stadium. 

According to a November 2013 report by Cleveland.com renovation on the Browns stadium, approved last year, will cost upwards of $120 million and of that $30 million will be paid for by the city at the expense of taxpayers.

The Browns are not the only one using taxpayers. Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cleveland Cavs, who has received millions in tax payer handouts and supported the extension of the sin tax, to the tune of a $1.8 million collective effort is a proponent of restricting the resale market. 

Instead of competing for a chunk of the $10 billion a year resale business Gilbert wants to destroy the entire market by restricting fans to only use the resale Flashseats, the resale platform operated by his ticketing company, Veritix. 

Fans who are unaware of the restriction and use any other platform have been stripped of their season tickets and threatened with further action. Rather than compete against other platforms, Glibert is seeking to prevent competition and the end result will be higher ticket prices for fans.

The amount of money taxpayers shell out for all three major teams is astronomical. The Browns, Indians and Cavs cost the taxpayers millions annually. This was compounded by the extension of the Sin Tax which was extended to the tune of $260 million last year.

Whatever your political leanings may be, this issue is about personal property rights, your right as a ticket buying consumer and rigging of the free market. Gilbert, Ticketmaster, and others are using their power and influence to destroy the market and strip fans of their basic ownership rights. Ticket resale should be protected and consenting adults should have every right to sell their tickets where they choose and for a price they agree on, without restriction.

That is why you will soon see a broad coalition of grassroots activists from the left & the right, think tanks, nonprofits and consumer groups are teaming up to call on Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine to look into these anti-competitive practices and put a stop to them.

As taxpayers we should have a voice against these abuses. Attorney General DeWine should know that these issues exist and do whatever it takes to stop them. We hope you will join us as we continue to push forward with this fight and look forward to working with you to protect the free market and personal property rights of fans.