This Week's Newsmakers: Athletes Grow More Politically Aware
THE DAILY each Friday offers our take on the performances over the past week of people and entities in sports business. Here are this week’s newsmakers.
 |
LeBron James (l), On Stage With Jay-Z,
One Of Many Athletes To Stump For Obama |
WIN: ATHLETES BECOMING POLITICALLY AWARE -- With BARACK OBAMA set to become our country's 44th President, one of the lasting impressions of this election season is the influx of top athletes taking a political stance. Regardless of whether it is LEBRON JAMES at an Obama rally or JARED ALLEN stumping for MCCAIN, it is refreshing to see politics, previously shunned from the locker room, matter to the biggest names in sports. Heck, even the once politically-averse MICHAEL JORDAN quietly backed our newest Commander-in-Chief.
LOSE: REDSKINS -- The Redskins, battling for position in the stout NFC East, suffer a sound defeat at the hands of the Steelers on "MNF" in front of a home crowd with a large pro-Pittsburgh contingent. The Steelers faithful even force JASON CAMPBELL and the Redskins' offense to use silent snap counts ... on their own turf. C'mon Skins fans, your team is in in the middle of the playoff hunt! To add insult to injury, the team's new burgundy-on-burgundy uniform scheme is generally panned. Let's hope DAN SNYDER quickly puts an end to that color combination.
DRAW: "MNF" INTERVIEWS -- Did you hear that both Obama and McCain were going to be on at halftime of last Monday's Steelers-Redskins matchup? The heavily-hyped interviews with both candidates provide one of the last national platforms before voting on Tuesday, but the brief chats are generally regarded as "simplistic" and "superficial." However, the highly-mocked CHRIS BERMAN handles the discussions with the proper amount of respect for the situation. And Boomer was able to extract one sound clip from the interviews, as Obama expresses his desire for a college football playoff.
|
