Major League Baseball, along with a number of other large corporations, has vehemently protested the recent passing of a round of new voter and election reform laws in Georgia. The MLB went as far as yanking their extremely popular All-Star game from Atlanta and will host the game elsewhere.
According to The Hill, that move alone, which was widely panned by many in the mainstream media and by some Georgia Democrats, will have a devastating effect on much-needed tourism revenue in the general area of where the game was to take place — to the tune of roughly a $100 million loss.
What’s going on?
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law a new voter integrity bill that actually offers a number of benefits for Georgia voters, but Democrats, including President Joe Biden, quickly spun the bill as a form of voter suppression or, in some cases, outright racism.
“This law, like so many others being pursued by Republicans in statehouses across the country, is a blatant attack on the Constitution and good conscience,” Biden recently said. “This is Jim Crow in the 21st century.”
Since his original “Jim Crow” description, the president has repeated the line on multiple occasions, most recently labeling the laws as “Jim Crow on steroids.”
The president was called out by the ultra-left-leaning Washington Post earlier in the week after he told a number of blatant lies about the bill and what it means for Georgia voters, though that hasn’t seemed to stop him from spreading the falsities in front of any camera or reporter he encounters.
Many “woke” corporations and companies, like the Atlanta-based Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines, joined in the protests of the election reform bills, all taking jabs at Georgia Republicans for what they claim is a clear attempt to suppress the Black vote in the Peach State.
The backfiring
It might be momentarily popular for corporations like Coke, Delta, and the MLB to take a ride on the social justice public relations train, which is always good for extra press attention, but in the MLB’s case, pulling the All-Star game and other events from the state will be horrific for the very people they claim to defend.
Cobb County, Georgia president and CEO of Cobb Travel and Tourism, Holly Quinlan, estimates that the loss of the All-Star game will have roughly a $100 million impact on lost tourism revenue, adding that the timing is far from ideal, given that many vendors and businesses are just now attempting to recover from losses sustained by the pandemic.
“The 8,000-plus contracted hotel room nights that will not actualize as a result of the MLB All-Star Game relocation will have a negative impact on Cobb’s hospitality industry and other local businesses, further delaying recovery,” Quinlan said.
Some of Georgia’s most influential Democratic leaders, such as former gubernatorial candidate Stacy Abrams and Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) expressed their disappointment with the move to pull the game out of state, saying that it will have a negative economic impact on those who were counting on the popular event.
Hopefully, “woke” corporations will eventually be able to see that they’re likely doing more harm than good in many cases, which is clearly going to be the case in Georgia this year.
The post MLB’s pullout of All-Star game from Georgia means $100 million in lost tourism revenue first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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