WAG New Interim CEO/President of USAG

[profmom]

I have plenty of opinions about the politics, but leaving that aside, the optics are just not good. USAG cannot seem to wrap its head around the new zeitgeist of athlete empowerment and voice. Regardless of what you think about Colin Kaepernick and Black Lives Matter, it's a simple fact that four of the ten members of the 2016 Olympic team were people of color, some of the top athletes have relationships with Nike, and, as others have noted, USAG is not exactly overwhelmed with sponsorship offers right now.

With the sport itself in such a difficult moment, I think the last thing it needs right now is a big, ugly, contentious, public engagement in the current painful national debate over race and politics. And having it break out as the leadership of the sport on one side and the athletes on the other? YIKES!

Jon Horton, who is no flaming liberal by anyone's measure, sees this as a major misstep on the part of the organization. I agree with him.

 

[Deleted member 18037]

. Nike alienated themselves when they went with the controversy.

I believe Nike’s stock is back up.

They are going to be just fine.

 

[QueenBee]

I believe Nike’s stock is back up.

They are going to be just fine.

Nike's stock rose 30% when their new ad campaign was announced.

I, too, want politics to stay out of gymnastics - which is another reason why this interim selection is so disappointing.

 

[Empowered]

Just my two cents here, but if the goal for USAG is increased transparency, hiring a former congresswoman, from either party, is a poor choice.

When you factor in her connections to the firm responsible for attempting to cover for Nassar, USAG has gone beyond tone deaf and wandered into the territory of willful ignorance.

 

[reluctant]

This actually makes me like her better, LOL!

Seriously? You like her more because she disrespects people of color and their right to peaceful protest?

 

[momnipotent]

People who do not appreciate CK are not racist, they are Americans.

How American are you when you object to someone exercising their right to free speech? That is literally the number one right America was built on. CK was protesting police brutality against people of color. Whether you agree with the way he did it or not, to post video or pictures to social media blacking out the Nike logo in response comes across to a lot of people as racist, no matter how it was meant. In one of your other posts you called out Simone for being immature by posting her criticism on social media and not addressing it directly. Why don’t you hold Ms. Bono to the same standard? She took a job representing thousands of athletes of all colors and backgrounds-she should have gone back to look at her online presence and made sure the image she was projecting was sensitive to that. It was a major misstep. I’m not ready to write her off over it, but come on. It Would be nice to have someone with just a little common sense in the job.

 

[Madden3]

“Ms. Bono… on Sept. 7 tweeted: “Playing in a charity golf tournament raising money for our nation’s Special Forces operators and their families. Unfortunately had these shoes in my bag. Luckily I had a marker in my bag too....”


Accompanying the tweet was a photo of someone blacking out a white Nike swoosh on a black pair of shoes.”


This is the horrible tweet? This is racist? Does anyone even remember WHY Kaepernick started the kneeling thing?

Any person who values life knows it is horrible when any person is unnecessarily killed by a police officer. But BLM promotes the idea that black people in the US are being targeted for murder by the police and that "there are no consequences" for officers who shoot and kill black men. This is an outrageous lie.

Many believe that BLM's often incorrect and inflammatory rhetoric has inspired the assassinations of several police officers. And not just white ones. So yes, many people of all races found NIke's adoption of Kaepernick as their spokesmodel offensive. To call them racist for this opinion is another, outrageous lie.

Nike hired Kaepernick and painted this successful professional athlete as someone who has "sacrificed everything" (purposefully offensive to military and first responders who actually and all too often "sacrifice everything" for others) precisely in order to cause controversy, get lots of free press and social media exposure, and look like heroes while exploiting a serious issue, all in a bid to sell more sneakers and yoga pants. The idea they give a poop about what Mary Bono tweeted about them a month ago is absurd.Those kinds of tweets are exactly what they wanted.

This stinks of manufactured outrage. I suspect Bono’s real crime is having held Republican office at one time in her life. That is more than enough to cause a twitter mob to try to destroy her career.

Her mistake is in apologizing to that mob. I do not know anything else about her, but as far as the above tweet goes, she did absolutely nothing wrong. If that opinion makes you believe I am a racist, so be it. I am done explaining nuance to the outrage mobs.

 

[reluctant]

“Ms. Bono… on Sept. 7 tweeted: “Playing in a charity golf tournament raising money for our nation’s Special Forces operators and their families. Unfortunately had these shoes in my bag. Luckily I had a marker in my bag too....”


Accompanying the tweet was a photo of someone blacking out a white Nike swoosh on a black pair of shoes.”


This is the horrible tweet? This is racist? Does anyone even remember WHY Kaepernick started the kneeling thing?

Any person who values life knows it is horrible when any person is unnecessarily killed by a police officer. But BLM promotes the idea that black people in the US are being targeted for murder by the police and that "there are no consequences" for officers who shoot and kill black men. This is an outrageous lie.

Many believe that BLM's often incorrect and inflammatory rhetoric has inspired the assassinations of several police officers. And not just white ones. So yes, many people of all races found NIke's adoption of Kaepernick as their spokesmodel offensive. To call them racist for this opinion is another, outrageous lie.

Nike hired Kaepernick and painted this successful professional athlete as someone who has "sacrificed everything" (purposefully offensive to military and first responders who actually and all too often "sacrifice everything" for others) precisely in order to cause controversy, get lots of free press and social media exposure, and look like heroes while exploiting a serious issue, all in a bid to sell more sneakers and yoga pants. The idea they give a poop about what Mary Bono tweeted about them a month ago is absurd.Those kinds of tweets are exactly what they wanted.

This stinks of manufactured outrage. I suspect Bono’s real crime is having held Republican office at one time in her life. That is more than enough to cause a twitter mob to try to destroy her career.

Her mistake is in apologizing to that mob. I do not know anything else about her, but as far as the above tweet goes, she did absolutely nothing wrong. If that opinion makes you believe I am a racist, so be it. I am done explaining nuance to the outrage mobs.

Madden3 this is an extraordinarily racist comment. I think you should delete it.

 

[bogwoppit]

Thread is closed. I actually get why this thread cannot stay away from politics, but I just cannot allow it here. Religion and politics have always brought out the crazy train, ya'll need to take this to social groups or PM's.

Move along now.