Anyone Watching the Derek Chauvin Trial?

[hawkeye]

What LeBron did was reprehensible. I guarantee that the trouble he is stirring up in Columbus won't occur anywhere near his gated, guarded mansion in his predominately white neighborhood in SoCal. He may very well have made himself a target of litigation by the cop. What would you do on a civil jury when this cop who saved a young girl's life is accusing LeBron James of defamation, and making credible threats of violence against him? How much money would you award that cop?

The pro sports leagues are killing their brand with injecting politics into it. I'm with Favre. I just want to watch my team (the Browns) break my heart every Sunday afternoon, not get preached at about whatever the latest political fad is. I've got so many other worthwhile things to do with my time on a Sunday afternoon, and I'm choosing to do so. Surprising that this is so hard for sports owners to understand.

Think of you running a business, such as a HVAC biz, and you've got employees that are BLM activits, or white supremacists. Quite frankly, I don't care what those employees are doing on their own time, but when they are at work, their racist tatoos, pins, bumper stickers, whatever, are covered up, and they do their job. If I'm in the business of HVAC, I want the entire purchasing public to be my potential business, and I'm not going to do anything, or allow my employees to do anything that will alienate 50% of my potential customer base. This just seems like common sense to me. Have I lost my marbles?

Tommy, you are spot on. I could care less what people do on their own time, but if I was a business owner, they would follow my policies. I feel the owners and leagues have bowed to social pressure and once you bend to that, you can't draw a line anymore. Even more, sports and entertainment in general should be void of all politics because people of all political followings and backgrounds are there to either forget about issues as such or just want to watch a ball game.

Many now avoid or won't watch because of this movement. It's one thing to support or show support movements, but when players begin to spout rhetoric that can be construed as hate, racism or even veiled threats, the league needs to draw a line and push back. Sadly, nothing will happen to Lebron. He deleted it. Big deal. He did so because I'm sure someone reached out to the league or his attorney or agent and told him it was going to cause backlash. But he explanation was not really any better.

I sadly am more for "shut up and play". But it really is on us. We the fans pay for these outrageous players' salaries. If there was a boycott or people stopped watching, I guarantee you things would change very quickly.

 

[tommyguns2]

I'm guessing that every pro athlete has a clause in their contract that allows the team to penalize (fine/release/etc.) the athlete for an action taken on or off the field that tarnishes the team or league brand.

For example, let's say some football star decides that he wants to advocate for changing the law for pedophilia (NAMBLA shit). The guy is not breaking any law, but is taking whatever is the recognized NAMBLA stance or hand signal during the national anthem, and even off the field is taking a prominent advocacy position for that cause. Both the team and the league would shut that down in a heartbeat, not because what he's doing is illegal, but because that tarnishes the goodwill of the team and the league. It's not rocket science.