With less than two weeks remaining for people to end relationships and alienate friends and family over which presidential candidate they support, it’s not a stretch to say that most of us can’t wait for this election to be over. However, people can always be just a little bit angrier if we want them to be, and the best way to do that is to simply mix politics with sports. Just look at how some Buffalo Bills fans voiced their opinions of Colin Kaepernick’s ongoing protest of police brutality.
Just as beer drinkers are claiming they’ll protest Yuengling over the owner’s endorsement of Donald Trump, the revelation of how some athletes and sports figures are donating their money to political candidates will most certainly inspire the more rabid fans to shout, “Stick to sports!” for all the world to hear. CBS Sports dug into donation data from opensecrets.org, and the most obvious takeaway is that more sports figures prefer Hillary Clinton.
But that’s not to say that Trump isn’t getting plenty of cash from the sports world. According to the findings, Trump’s most generous supporters are Houston Texans owner Bob McNair, who has donated approximately $254,600 to the candidate’s joint fundraising committee, and New York Jets owner (and Jeb Bush’s former finance chair) Woody Johnson, who has chipped in $100,000. Some of the smaller, but still notable, donors include:
Richie Incognito, Bills OL $500
Vince Dooley, ex-Georgia HOF coach $250
Curt Schilling, ex-Red Sox pitcher (failed video game developer and new Breitbart journalist) $250
Davey Johnson, ex-Mets manager $240
Clinton also has some NFL owner money lining her pantsuit pockets, with Tampa Bay Bucs co-owner Edward Glazer and New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch donating $5,400, and Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie kicking in another $2,700. Clinton is certainly winning the battle in terms of name recognition, claiming donations from these people you’ve heard of:
Sammy Sosa, ex-Cubs OF $5,400
Jason Kidd, Bucks coach $5,200
Muhammad Ali, ex-boxer (prior to death) $2,700
Magic Johnson, Lakers HOFer $2,700
Alex Rodriguez, ex-Yankees 3B $2,700
Mike Tomlin, Steelers coach $2,700
Adam Silver, NBA commissioner $2,700
Hank Aaron, Braves HOFer $2,300
Dikembe Mutombo, ex-NBA HOFer $2,161
That’s right, even Mutombo is with her.
Even MLB umpire Dale Scott tossed $72 Clinton’s way. (Someone has to pay for the interns’ snack allowance.) Of course, money isn’t always the most important donation. Some sports figures have helped both campaigns by providing compelling, thought-provoking endorsements, like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who wrote that electing Clinton “is important not just to maintaining the integrity of the United States but also to preventing an international trend that threatens to unleash a triumph of hatred and fear over reason.”
Or legendary college football coach Lou Holtz, who said of Trump: “The main reason I’m endorsing him, I played his golf course, I stayed in his hotel. He does nothing but go first class in everything. He wants his country to be first class as well.”
Check here for the rest of CBS Sports’ list of sports people you can be angry at over their political leanings.