Georgia Small Companies are suing MLB for shifting the All-Star Sport

Smart companies learn the hard way that social activism comes at a price. Major League Baseball was beaten on Monday with a $ 1.1 billion lawsuit for pulling the 2021 All-Star game out of Atlanta.

The Job Creators Network, a small business advocate, filed the lawsuit, arguing that the MLB Georgia companies’ decision cost $ 100 million in lost revenue and is seeking $ 1 billion in punitive damages.

Earlier this spring, MLB announced that it would be pulling the event out of the state after Georgia lawmakers passed new law that would make voting easier and safer.

The MLB’s decision was based on the misrepresentation by the media that provisions of the law, such as replacing signature verification with photo identification, would make voting more difficult. But, as Alfredo Ortiz, president of the Job Creators Network pointed out, “Major League Baseball itself requires ID at ticket booths at Yankee Stadium in New York, Busch Stadium in St. Louis, and at baseball stadiums across the country.”

MLB embodies the typical elite attitude in America: rules for you, but not for me.

Though other companies quickly realized that condemning Georgia’s election security measures had been wrong, MLB doubled in size by announcing Denver as the new location for the All-Star game. But unlike some large companies, MLB’s clientele is not exclusively awakened.

If the MLB expected their political activism to have no effect, it has drastically miscalculated. Ortiz called his Georgia boycott “a knee-jerk, hypocritical, and illegal response to misinformation about Georgia’s new electoral law.” And the lawsuit is the first step in bringing them to justice.

Ironically, MLB’s politically charged move against Georgia, allegedly because of a far-fetched link to racism, is going to hurt the most minority-owned companies, according to the Job Creators Network lawsuit.

It cites over 8,000 Atlanta hotel reservations that have been canceled since MLB ruled that travelers ate, slept and shopped at locally run stores in Atlanta, a city with large racial and ethnic minorities. It indicates that the blow was particularly acute following the COVID-19-related closings.

“MLB stole $ 100 million from small Atlanta businesses, many of which are minority-owned,” said Ortiz.

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Five or ten years ago that lawsuit would never have been brought. Imagine if the companies that boycotted North Carolina over their bathroom bills had been sued for the economic damage they caused.

But the fact that groups like Job Creators Network are ready to wear this standard in the courtroom shows that many Americans have become increasingly aware that corporate elites are throwing their weight in politics. It also illustrates the profound way in which former President Donald Trump’s legacy lives on in the hundreds of Conservative judges he has placed in courts across the country.

Job Creators Network wants to do MLB, for example: Woke corporations cannot expect to get away with it if they throw themselves into political conflict in order to get a few hits for their favored side. Not only are they alienating their own clientele (see how that worked for the National Football League), but they are being blamed for the havoc they are wreaking among local, small businesses.

Businesses will only learn to stay out of politics if it affects their bottom line.

Originally published by the Family Research Council

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