The professional football league is about to start its new season soon, and you know what that means — MORE POLITICAL LECTURES! (Okay, fantasy football, but still…)
While some are still bleating about Colin Kaepernick not playing the league is still dealing with the fallout from his protesting. With ratings dropping, and discontent between ownership and activist-minded athletes, one solution thought upon was the creation of a social justice committee, comprised of owners and players. This committee would address and influence any number of social causes.
It was recently announced that one member would be stepping down, Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross. Initially, it sounded as if Ross would be focusing on work with his own non-profit organization. However committee member Chris Long, recently retired from playing, spoke with Sports Illustrated and let it slip that Ross had in fact been pushed out of the group.
"The one thing I really disagree with Eric [Reid] on is that the Coalition hasn't done anything."
Chris Long defends the Players Coalition and announces the removal of Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross from the working group committee. pic.twitter.com/d6tup52FiH
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) August 20, 2019
To just suggest that maybe Long is not the deep thinker on these matters, at one point he questions some motivations by the league as sounding suspiciously capitalistic. He does not explain why that itself is nefarious, nor why he is wearing a shirt promoting Gillette, which is a capitalistic company, and which had surely paid for him to don on the interview.
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In the latter part of this clip Long attempts to underscore the autonomy of their committee by using the recent example of the Ross departure. “We just removed,” he began, before catching himself and rewording. “Or got Stephen Ross to agree to be off a working group,” Long states.
So you did not “remove” him, you convinced him it would be in his interests to leave. What goes unsaid is why Ross, who was a founding member of the social justice committee, was compelled to agree to leave. After all, he has been a community supporter through his own Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality (RISE), which has funded and supported a large number off social issues.
But despite actually practicing the intentions of the committee Ross was forced out. Why? Because he supports the “wrong” politician. Recall all the recent outrage at Equinox, and Soul Cycle? Ross is chairman of those companies.
Here is just one example of the unhinged reactions to Ross hosting a fundraiser for President Trump.
Trump's big supporter Steven Ross just got forced of the NFL's social justice committee because he's a soul less monster.
He also owns @soulcycle and @Equinox.
Feel free to boycott them.#TuesdayThoughts https://t.co/1Bpk3JTJqU
— Grant Stern (@grantstern) August 22, 2019
As stated, this “monster” helped form the social justice committee. His RISE organization has long been carrying out the very community activities the NFL social justice committee has been endeavoring to promote. Along with that Ross started a separate initiative a few seasons back where the franchise and the Miami players donate funds and make efforts in the community to promote groups and organizations in the area that support the same types of causes.
Good thing the NFL got rid of this kind of individual, because “Orange Man Bad!”
Consider this: this league outfit just eliminated a man who enacts and donates copiously to the causes they promote because he has the “wrong” political views — in the name of being inclusive.
And the NFL expects to be attracting fans back with this kind of mentality.
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