All these “woke” athletes, coaches and sports media talking heads had no problem virtue signaling on issues about their anti-President Trump stances and a slew of other social justice issues.
But when it came to sticking up for the U.S. Constitution and Free Speech against China, what happened? Crickets.
And on Wednesday, ESPN showed an illegal illegitimate categorically false map of China that actually violates international law; proving they really are terrified of the communist regime.
It all started when Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support for the pro-Democracy protestors in Hong Kong, which was immediately met with condemnation from the Communist government in China.
The problem? The NBA has a huge footprint in China with a lot of the league’s apparel and television ratings revenue based in the Communist country with 1.3 billion population.
But Disney has been doing the same thing for years. The movie studio consistently cuts scenes from its movies in order to pass the Chinese censors so they can make more money. For instance, there was a scene in “Avengers: Endgame” when a gay character is trying to reconcile with losing his husband after Thanos took out half of life throughout the universe. China cut that scene from the film.
In “Bohemian Rhapsody,” China censors cut out any mention of homosexuality.
Now the NBA is in a billion dollar predicament. Should they stand up for Freedom of Speech or should they swallow their pride and turn the other cheek?
On Wednesday, a CNN reporter had a microphone literally yanked from her hands after she asked Houston Rockets stars James Harden and Russell Westbrook about their official position on the China controversy.
A reporter asked star Golden State Warriors point guard Steph Curry about his opinion and he dodged the question.
It’s crystal clear that NBA commissioner Adam Silver urged everyone from players to coaches not to comment on it.
Now, ESPN is a Disney-owned network and apparently they’re also bending over backwards in order to satisfy the Chinese government because they used an illegal map of the country. What that means is it’s essentially a state propaganda Communist map showing the 9 Dash Line and the claim into the South China Sea and into the West Philippine Sea. Meaning it claims parts of the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and claims the entirety of Taiwan.
This map is considered illegal by the United Nations and United States has condemned it as well.
ESPN Uses Illegal Communist Map of ‘China’ in NBA Report https://t.co/L0gtmeGrHT via @BreitbartNews
— Chuck Woolery (@chuckwoolery) October 10, 2019
This was the actual segment:
ESPN declines comment on how a pro-China map showing disputed Taiwanese and Indian territories belonging to China ended up on SportsCenter https://t.co/bgtL5iBeLO pic.twitter.com/AkzvkvGX7q
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) October 10, 2019
It’s unclear whether the network made an honest mistake but it doesn’t appear so.
To make matters worse, ESPN declined to comment, which further demonstrates they probably used that specific map intentionally.