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Article IndexThe Chicago Tribune Company sold the Baltimore Sun along with other papers and properties to former Chicago White Sox minority partner Sam Zell who apparently overpaid for the properties and could not afford to maintain the newspaper at 2002 worker levels. The Sun is a shell of a newspaper these days. The Cubs franchise along with Wrigley Field also was jettisoned.
There is limited free speech in sports. People like NBA Commissioner David Stern and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell gagged NBA and NFL owners and threatened them with fines for talking about the lockouts. Goodell fined Tennessee Titans owner Bud Adams for giving the finger to someone as he sat in his owner’s box watching his Titans play. Major League Baseball commissioners have put up gag orders on the owners during labor talks.
Sports fans and constitutional experts on radio, TV and message boards should take note.
Evan Weiner, the winner of the United States Sports Academy's 2010 Ronald Reagan Media Award, is an author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on "The Politics of Sports Business." His book, "The Business and Politics of Sports, Second Edition" is available at bickley.com, Barnes and Noble or Amazon Kindle.
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Free speech, as all Constitutional rights, apply to all citizens of this country. In public, you can say whatever you want, and you will not be prosecuted. That's what it means.
So "free speech" or the right to "bare arms" and so on do NOT apply to organizations, be they public or private. Were any of the people in this article prosecuted by a government agency for what they said? No? Then they, in fact, Spoke Freely, as protected by our Bill of Rights.
Constitutional rights means that you won't be prosecuted or jailed for speaking your mind, it does not in any way mean you won't be fired, asked to leave private property, or otherwise penalized by a private organization or individual.