ESPN’s Senior NBA Insider and everyone’s favorite draft spoiler Adrian Wojnarowski might have crossed a few of Disney’s — the parent company of ESPN — corporate lines when he emailed “Fuck You” from his @espn.com work email account to a U.S. Senator.
Don’t criticize #China or express support for law enforcement to @espn. It makes them real mad @Outkick pic.twitter.com/WJDxrotUBD
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 10, 2020
Woj was responding to Senator Josh Hawley’s press office and their release of Hawley’s letter to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. Hawley is objecting to what he sees as the NBA’s overly restrictive rules concerning what social statements players are and are not allowed to make on their uniforms during the upcoming bubble season.
If @NBA is going to put social cause statements on uniforms, why not “Support our Troops” or “Back the Blue”? Or given how much $$ @nba makes in #China, how about “Free Hong Kong”! Today I wrote to Adam Silver to ask for answers pic.twitter.com/PthYR4OxmE
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 10, 2020
The junior Senator from Missouri is expressing concern that the droves of NBA players longing to support the police won’t be able to make their points known. He also focuses largely on more legitimate concerns over the NBA’s ties to China and their willfully ignoring human rights violations by that nation’s government as well as their recent restrictive actions in Hong Kong.
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I’m skeptical of his true motivations, but the one point that Hawley uses in his letter that is reasonable is that the NBA’s affiliation with China needs to be discussed. Hawley calls out Adam Silver and the league’s 2019 apology to the Chinese government as evidence of their continuing obeisance in the name of profit.
After Hawley releasied Woj’s email, the reported quickly issued a standard apology on social media:
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 10, 2020
Which then caused Hawley to double-down on his stance against the NBA, ESPN and Disney, taking to Twitter, saying:
How much money does @espn @Disney @ABCNetwork make from @NBA in #China? Just asking
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 10, 2020
And then responding to ESPN’s apology statement by again calling for action and statements against the league’s policy toward China. To his credit, Hawley does give Wojnarowski a pass on needing to apologize, instead focusing on his original point and using the publicity to leverage the situation.
Don’t make @wojespn apologize. He’s just saying what he really thinks. Call out the @NBA. You know, your job https://t.co/qLX5VsdO6R
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 10, 2020
This is unlikely to cost the beloved ESPN insider his job, but Wojnarowski has to be feeling pretty stupid for using his work account, creating this opportunity for Hawley to further his point and deciding to send the email in the first place. One wonders how immediately Woj regretted this one after hearing his iPhone email’s “woosh” noise dispatching the email. Some people are just better on the other side of breaking news headlines.
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