The move by Republican legislators to shamelessly institute voting restrictions across the country will impact upcoming elections. But these racist laws are now prompting some to take action against the NFL.
With these laws blatantly affecting communities of color, some 200 religious leaders have banded together to call for the NFL to move the 2023 Super Bowl out of Arizona.
The move by Arizona Republicans to attack and restrict communities of color isn’t new.
After Ronald Regan made Martin Luther King Day a national holiday in 1983, many states joined in. Arizona was not one of them.
Despite multiple attempts to have the day recognized by the state, leaders maintained their ignorance stance. But in 1990, after another MLK Day vote failed, outside support intervened.
Conventions and conferences boycotted the state and refused to hold events there. But the biggest blow came from the NFL who pulled the 1993 Super Bowl from the host city of Phoenix, costing them an estimated $200 million in revenue.
After getting pummeled in the wallet, the state finally woke up and two years later, in November of 1992, they finally passed a bill recognizing Martin Luther King Day, the last state to formally recognize the day.
After losing the 2020 election, state Republicans are going full-Arizona 1983-1992 and targeting communities of color again, this time through Jim Crow voting restrictions and attempts by Republican state legislators to overturn election results and seize power as they see fit.
But with the Super Bowl due to be played in Arizona next year, this group of leaders, including Reverends Jesse Jackson and William Barber, recognize the opportunity to strike another economic blow to the state in response to their attempts to deter voting by communities of color and possibly steal elections.
In a letter sent to Commissioner Goodell last week, the group asked the NFL to move Super Bowl LVII from the state.
“As the NFL has recently considered relocating Super Bowl LVI because of COVID-19, we, as faith leaders, ask you to consider relocating Super Bowl LVII from Arizona because of another disease: the disease of racism, and particularly, its symptom of voter suppression,” the group wrote.
The group detailed the passed and proposed restrictive voting laws in the state, called out Senator Kyrsten Sinema as “ruthless” for her failure to protect voting rights, and challenged the NFL’s commitment to change by bringing up their current campaigns.
“As two of the NFL’s slogans this season are ‘Inspire Change’ and ‘It Takes All of Us,’ who precisely are the us to be inspired, but the very spectators who also happen to be voters?
“Therefore, Commissioner, as we are called, we call upon you to make living words of “Inspire Change,” and relocate Super Bowl LVII from Arizona.”
On Tuesday, the NFL was slapped with a scathing class action lawsuit filed by former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores, accusing the NFL of racist hiring practices.
With that in mind, let’s hope the NFL recalls their actions against Arizona in the 1990s, follows MLB’s decision to move the All-Star Game out of Atlanta in response to Georgia passing their restrictive voting laws, and does the right thing by moving the 2023 Super Bowl out of Arizona.
