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I’m trying to understand this logic.  Whenever an athlete voices an opinion on politics or social issues, someone in a bar or standing by the water cooler at the office will make the proclamation that they are not paying them for that.  “I’m not paying them for their opinions.”  And I’m just standing there wondering, “What the fuck are you talking about?  And what convoluted logic allowed you to arrive at a place where you are making such a statement?”

You might be a sports fan.  You might buy tickets to the game or games.  You might buy a jersey or a cap.  You might run your dumbass opinions on a sports radio talk show.  But how does that give you any say on the athlete’s free speech.  If you buy tickets to a game or games, that buys you the right to go to the venue and witness the game.  If you buy a jersey or cap, it gives you the right to wear those items or use them as décor or whatever.  Paying an inflated price for the jersey doesn't give you special rights.  It may raise some questions as to your own intelligence that you paid the inflated price but that's another issue.  If you watch the game for free on network TV then you really didn’t pay for anything at all.  Cheap bastard!

At the point that you attend and witness the game or wear the product, you have gotten, in full, the value of your purchase.  That purchase does not give you the right to dictate someone else’s speech.  And why would you be the arbiter of speech anyway?  How does being a fool that pays 5 or 6 times the value of a jersey in order to have a player’s name and number on it qualify you to be an authority on speech?  If anything, you are probably less qualified to be dictating what other people can or can’t say.

If you’re really that offended that the players are voicing opinions then you should simply boycott those athletes or sports leagues.  Of course, we know you won’t do that.  When I suggest that you start crying that really like sports and wouldn’t know what else to do.  Well, that speaks volumes to your own measure as a human being.  It would seem that you be grateful that you get to watch the game and just shut the fuck up otherwise!  Of course, I can’t tell you to do that.  I would be curtailing your right to free speech if I did that.  You fully have the right to be every much the braying ass you are accusing them of being.