There are many examples of racist right wing radio stations piggybacking college and pro sports teams to attract advertisers and community credibility.
That includes 87 universities (broadcasting on 260 Limbaugh stations) listed at fakenewsradio.org as well as possibly hundreds more colleges, high schools, and professional teams in a wide variety of sports.
While players kneel to protest for justice, team owners and management associate them with radio stations that call kneeling athletes unAmerican, BLM protestors “marxist terrorists” and “communists”, make excuses for white supremacists, and sell voter suppression legislation.
At this particular time it may be hard to find a more glaring example of this tragic absurdity than the fact that the NBA’s Washington (DC) Wizards broadcast on 5 right wing talk radio stations (listed below). With few if any exceptions, the local and national talkers on those stations enabled Trump’s attempted coup and the attack on the Capitol, excused racism, called COVID a hoax, and politicized mask-wearing.
Some of those hosts may be backtracking a bit now but past recordings and podcasts will show their unanimous complicity in the Trump COVID disaster.
While social media is getting a lot of the blame for Trump and the domestic terrorism in Washington it was 30 years of unchallenged lying from 1500 radio stations like the five that parasitize the Washington Wizards that enabled the takeover of the Republican Party.
If the Washington Wizard organization announces they will no longer broadcast sports on stations that clearly oppose their stated desires for social justice they can set an important example for hundreds of teams broadcasting on what may be as much one third to half of the 1500 or so hate radio stations plaguing the country.
The NBA and NBPA agreed to a list of 29 approved statements that players could wear instead of their names: Black Lives Matter, Say Their Names, Vote, I Can't Breathe, Justice, Peace, Equality, Freedom, Enough, Power to the People, Justice Now, Say Her Name, Sí Se Puede (Yes We Can), Liberation, See Us, Hear Us, Respect Us, Love Us, Listen, Listen to Us, Stand Up, Ally, Anti-Racist, I Am A Man, Speak Up, How Many More, Group Economics, Education Reform and Mentor.
Americans depressed and concerned that fascism is beating democracy shouldn’t give up before hundreds of hate radio stations start changing programming because of an exodus of advertisers.
That is what will happen when a team like the Washington Wizards suddenly announces they will look for apolitical alternatives to broadcast sports on and other teams, businesses, and institutions join them in an inevitable and long overdue divorce from hate radio.
As suggested in this recent diary, Limbaugh’s terminal cancer and the inevitable use of artificial intelligence to transcribe and analyze large samples of political talk radio will likely force the advertising industry to democratize it, but teams like the Washington Wizards can accelerate the process.
Republicans know much better than Democrats that the Party of Lincoln has become the Party of Limbaugh. They know the important role talk radio has played in enabling, intimidating, and radicalizing their party and obstructing progress. If you want more of them to turn on Trump and trumpers in their party, let then see the end of the talk radio monopoly coming soon.
Here are those five stations with some of their more well-known racist liars:
WBRG 1050 AM, 105.1 FM — O’Reilly, Loesch, Dobson, Sekulow, Dobbs
WLVA 580 AM, 94.1 FM — Kilmeade, Savage, Shapiro, Levin.
WRNR 740 AM, 106.5 FM — Beck, Loesch, Shapiro
WNOS 1450 AM, 106.5 FM — (Dennis) Miller, Ingraham, Medved, Prager
WCHV 1260 AM, 107.5 FM — Kilmeade, Limbaugh, Hannity, Larson
Here are some some ways to contact the Washington Wizards.
If you do contact them please be polite. They are one of many, many teams that do the same and are generally unaware of the problem.
Head Office, 601 F Street N.W, Washington D.C 20004
Staff directory — looks like a lot of people with a lot of email addresses but as usual how many actually get past junk filters, or get read?
Many of the top brass don’t give emails but lower down the list many do, and I think most probably use the same format. For example...
Scott Hall Vice President, Communications shall@monumentalsports.com
Daren Jenkins Director, Basketball Communications djenkins@monumentalsports.com
Matt Quinn Manager, Communications mquinn@monumentalsports.com
Wizards Facebook page
Contact form — might get read and passed on.
Customer Service Phone: 202-661-5100, 202-328-3800 — the usual recorded messages — maybe a place to leave one.
13 of the top 18 teams that played in the ‘bubble’ broadcast sports on 32 radio stations that feature Republican/right wing/racist talk show hosts.
And if you don’t think the talk radio monopoly is a serious problem:
Two recent developments will force the ad industry to democratize RW radio.
The biggest political mistake in history. It's the radio, stupid.
PS I forgot to mention when I turned on a local weekend idiot blowhard for a few minutes this morning he took a call from a guy who started by mentioning slavery in China, that nearly half a million kids disappear every year, and that the Biden’s own an island near pedophile Epstien’s island…… those are the kinds of calls that could be coming into stations all over the country on a regular basis and may not even be coming from in the US.