After the state of Georgia signed a new voting bill into law, Major League Baseball announced that they would be moving their All-Star Game out of the state. While ‘woke’ companies and President Biden himself praised MLB for the boycott, Atlanta’s mayor and small businesses everywhere said they didn’t like the move and that it punished the very groups they claimed to be defending. By driving a campaign of disinformation over the voter bill, Democrats are making decisions that will have a negative economic impact on Atlanta’s small businesses and Black-owned establishments.
Mayor Keisha Bottoms said that she did not like MLB’s decision to pull their games out of the state because small businesses will suffer in the area. While she said she “understood” their decision to push back against the voting laws, Mayor Bottoms said she was not in favor of a state boycott because it would impact their local economy.
But businesses everywhere are seeing the impacts of losing a much-needed opportunity to make money from the pandemic. Darrell Anderson, the owner of a limousine service, points to the fact that the area usually sees $100 million in revenue from the games and that this was a lost opportunity for business owners, especially minority business owners. He said he knew how badly the community wanted the All-Star Game played there and that the mixed politics has made it impossible for businesses to stay afloat.
“When Big Business teams up with politicians, they make bad decisions, and small businesses and their hardworking employees suffer the most. Politics should be decided at the ballot box. It has no place in making business decisions like where to hold the All-Star Game,” Anderson said.
Jobs Creator Network Alfredo Ortiz wrote a letter to MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred regarding the damage their decision has done to small businesses in the area and asking them to move the games back to Atlanta. He writes that MLB’s decision is punishing the very groups they claim to be defending and that activist groups are weaponizing American history to push radical left ideas that MLB fans don’t support. He said that the decision would have an “outsized impact on minority-owned businesses.
Even NBC’s Nightly News stumbled over the fact that the radical left activism has hurt small businesses looking to recover post-pandemic. Anchor Lester Holt and correspondent Blayne Alexander report that MLB’s decision has created “unintended fallout” on Atlanta’s local businesses. They spoke about the dozens of restaurants and businesses that sit on the shadow of Truist Park, home of the Atlanta Brave’s and where the All-Star Game was intended to take place.
Shawn Cooper, the owner of Harold’s Chicken, talked about seeing his sales stunted by the pandemic and was excited for the all-star weekend to make up ground. He was expecting to see more than double in sales. “I understand why they’re doing it, but it’s still frustrating as far as a small business, black-owned business owner. It’s kind of hard to try to maintain and bring customers in because of the pandemic,” he said.
Even Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp condemned MLB for their decision, saying it is hurting minority-owned businesses the most and by no fault of their own. He called out Democrats for spinning sports into political activism and said that people shouldn’t have to go to a game and worry about if they’re sitting next to a Joe Biden supporter or a Donald Trump supporter. But, as always, the radical left will politicize everything that benefits their agenda. Even if it hurts everyone around them.
