Sports leagues are among the many organizations taking part in the shameless, woke corporate pandering regarding Pride Month. Yet both NASCAR and FIFA made bizarre choices in their shows of tolerant solidarity.
NASCAR decided to apologize for its grave sins, saying in a tweet, “We acknowledge that recent actions have not aligned with NASCAR’s mission to be a welcoming sport for all. We remain steadfast in our commitment to create a more inclusive environment.” What exactly the company is referring to is not clear, but Associated Press reporter Jenna Fryer said that the tweet may be referring to Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott waving the green flag at the May 22 All-Star Race in Fort Worth.
I’m not sure what this tweet is acknowledging… someone with the power to acknowledge such things admitted to me Abbott at Texas was a mistake. But below isn’t exactly clear which actions are out of alignment. ?♀️ https://t.co/WpJruoau7k
— Jenna Fryer (@JennaFryer) June 1, 2022
NASCAR fully embraced the Black Lives Matter movement, jumping to the conclusion that its own fans were racist over the faux noose controversy involving Bubba Wallace. Michael Jordan, Wallace’s team owner, teamed up with NBC’s Craig Melvin to trash NASCAR fans as racist. All of this is fine, according to NASCAR, but the GOP governor of the second-largest state in the country is unacceptable, and organization officials feel the need to apologize and promise to do better.
While NASCAR’s pandering has an element of mystery, that of international soccer league FIFA is fairly straightforward. The global soccer governing body declared that “corporate social media accounts” will “include rainbow branding for Pride Month” and that it is “implementing a wide set of measures to ensure the FIFA World Cup is welcoming and inclusive.”
The reason FIFA has to promise “a wide set of measures” is because the organization decided to give the 2022 World Cup to Qatar, a country where homosexuality is illegal. As part of the massive 2015 FIFA corruption scandal that resulted in several convictions, the Justice Department contended that FIFA officials were bribed by Qatar to award the country the 2022 World Cup (and by Russia for the 2018 event). FIFA refused to reverse the decision at any point, even when the country used slave labor to build soccer stadiums, because the money is more important than human rights. Money evidently is more important than Pride Month, too.
Most of the corporations engaging in Pride Month pandering are just going through the motions, adding rainbows to their logos and issuing cookie-cutter statements of support. The same is true for most sports organizations, but NASCAR has chosen to alienate a large chunk of its fan base, while FIFA mocks the community it claims to support by boosting its partnership with Qatar. Officials from both organizations are embarrassing themselves, all because they want to fit in with woke culture.
