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Friday, October 11, 2019
Sports and Speech
I am watching the NBA/China controversy play out, as it has evolved from a simple tweet into a full-blown illustration of the role of speech within sports. From a free-speech (not to be confused with First Amendment, because I doubt there is state action to be found here, except by China) standpoint, the NBA and its teams have done everything wrong. From Commissioner Adam Silver trying to have it both ways ("we respect free speech, but what Morey did was wrong"), to teams removing fans from arenas, to a team PR person cutting off media questioning of players. The NBA apologized for the last one and said the team should not do that. But if the league is going through these contortions to cut-off speech, it should be no surprise that teams would follow suit in their own clumsy ways.
The interesting question is how far into the regular season this bleeds. China may form a unique chapter in the book on the subject of sport-and-speech I someday hope to write.
Posted by Howard Wasserman on October 11, 2019 at 07:51 AM in Howard Wasserman, Sports | Permalink
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