PORTLAND,OREGON (VosIzneias) — Portland Trail Blazers president and CEO Chris McGowan has announced that the National Basketball Association (NBA) team will no longer accept sponsorship from a rifle scope manufacturer that has a contract with Israeli military. The move comes after a year-long campaign by local activists to pressure the Blazers to drop the sponsor.
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Leupold and Stevens is a Beaverton, Oregon-based company which sponsored a segment during Blazers’ home games called “Leupold Hometown Heroes,” where military veterans and other individuals were honored by the crowd. The rifle scope manufacturer has a number of international contracts, including one with the Israeli military, prompting a number of local organizations, including the Portland Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and Jewish Voice For Peace, to spearhead an effort to get the Blazers to end their affiliation with the company.
McGowan claimed however that the team had not severed ties with Leopold and Stevens just because of BDS pressure:
“Leupold is no longer a partner of the organization,” McGowan said. “I thank them for many years of supporting our organization. They were a great partner when they were a sponsor. But, for various reasons…they’ve decided to go in a different direction, so they’re no longer a partner of our team.”
The Portland Trail Blazers tweeted out a statement denying that external pressure played a role in the decision.
Statement by Portland Trail Blazers regarding Leupold & Stevens partnership pic.twitter.com/ToTHMZ1idb
— Portland Trail Blazers (@trailblazers) October 11, 2019
The company itself also denied that they had dropped the sponsorship due to external pressure, stating that:
“Leupold & Stevens is proud to have been able to support the ‘Hometown Heroes’ program with the Portland Trail Blazers. The program honored the brave men and women of our nation’s armed forces, first responders, and other everyday heroes who put service before self. Leupold’s sponsorship contract officially expired at the conclusion of the 2018-2019 season. The company has made the decision to continue its never-ending support for local heroes through other programs.”
However the DSA claimed victory after the sponsorship was revoked:
“We are grateful for the hard work of the many community groups, activists, Blazers fans, and veterans who united around this important issue to stand up for Palestinian human rights,” DSA co-chair Olivia Katbi Smith said in a statement. “We are relieved that the Blazers have done the right thing and finally ended this completely unnecessary partnership with a company that has provided sniper scopes to a brutal occupying force.”
Cowards. (Trailblazers.) Won’t even admit that they knuckled under.
Yep. I can image they may not want to be associated with people who make sniper weapons. What this has to do with BDS seems coincidental at best.
When you noodle on it, it is hard to find any big success of that movement. Some university votes, I cannot think of much else. Still, the idea itself drives the Israelis up the wall.
Sniper weapons? Are you really that stupid? From this Blazer fan there from the beginning….they’ve seen my last dollar and I will be rooting for them to lose every game.
BDS, ANTIFA, JVP…..all fascists cut from the same cloth, and shame on the Blazers for cowardly bowing to them.