Major League Baseball was hit with a $100-million lawsuit this week over its decision to pull the 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta, Georgia, in response to the state’s new election integrity law.
The Job Creators Network, which has more than 30 partners, filed a lawsuit in New York City federal court on Tuesday, demanding that the MLB return the All-Star Game to Georgia or pay tens of millions of dollars in damages for moving it, the lawsuit says.
The $100 million figure aligns with revenue estimates of what local businesses in the Atlanta area will lose now that the game has been moved to Denver, Colorado, according to the Job Creators Network.
“MLB robbed the small businesses of Atlanta – many of them minority-owned – of $100 million. We want the game back where it belongs,” Alfredo Ortiz, president of the Job Creators Network, told FOX Business. “This was a knee-jerk, hypocritical and illegal reaction to misinformation about Georgia’s new voting law which includes voter ID.”
The MLB withdrew the All-Star Game from Atlanta in April after Georgia passed a law tightening voter identification and ballot authenticity requirements.
Democrats, including President Joe Biden, claimed the law was discriminatory towards minorities, even though the new law expands voting access throughout the state.
Ortiz pointed out that the same identification “restrictions” passed by Georgia are required by the MLB: “Major League Baseball itself requests ID at will-call ticket windows at Yankee Stadium in New York, Busch Stadium in St. Louis and at ballparks all across the country,” he said.
Regardless, Biden publicly called on the MLB to leave the state, claiming people “look” to the sports industry as an example.
“I think today’s professional athletes are acting incredibly responsibly. I would strongly support them doing that,” he said when asked whether the MLB should relocate the All-Star Game.
