Commentary: MLB’s Georgia Boycott Backfires, Congressman Moves To Strip League’s Antitrust Exemption
“Get woke, go broke” has become an anthem for critics of Major League Baseball’s decision Friday to pull its All-Star Game and 2021 draft from Atlanta in protest of Georgia’s new election integrity law. But perhaps the…
“Get woke, go broke” has become an anthem for critics of Major League Baseball’s decision Friday to pull its All-Star Game and 2021 draft from Atlanta in protest of Georgia’s new election integrity law.
But perhaps the most condemning response to the organization’s decision is coming not from fans but from Congress.
Rep. Jeff Duncan, a Republican from South Carolina, said Friday that he plans to introduce legislation that will remove MLB’s antitrust exemption after Commissioner Rob Manfred announced the Georgia move in response to the passage of state Senate Bill 202.
Moving the All-Star Game and draft “is the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport,” Manfred said in a statement. “Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box.”
Manfred’s decision came after many on the left depicted the Georgia law — which, among other things, requires voter ID for absentee ballots — as “voter suppression.” President Joe Biden described the law as “Jim Crow in the 21st Century” and “an atrocity.”
Firing back at the MLB commissioner, Duncan announced his own plans for retaliation.
“In light of @MLB’s stance to undermine election integrity laws, I have instructed my staff to begin drafting legislation to remove Major League Baseball’s federal antitrust exception,” he tweeted Friday.