TORONTO – In what has become an annual tradition in community outreach, sports teams across Canada are marking June as Pride Month by adding rainbow logos to their profile pictures, releasing an official statement, and closing all comments on Facebook.
“The Toronto Blue Jays believe baseball belongs to everyone and would like to take the opportunity to wish the fans a happy Pride month,” the statement read, with absolutely no follow up comments permitted. The team’s Facebook profile picture was updated to include a rainbow version of the Jays logo, along with an announcement that they would be giving away free baseball caps with the Pride logo at the next game, while simultaneously soliciting no input from angry sports fans or terminally online uncles whatsoever.
A similar pattern followed Pride-related statements from sports franchises across the country, from large teams like the Toronto Raptors, Edmonton Oilers, and Saskatchewan Roughriders, to smaller franchises like the Winnipeg Goldeyes, FC Supra du Québec, and the Halifax Bert’s Auto Mechanic Junior Kickers.
“This is becoming a common occurrence,” says Freida Washburn, a senior analyst at Sportsball Brand Strategies in Toronto. “Pride Month is the one event of the year that brings out the angriest people on the internet,” she added. “And look at the people responding with the ‘laugh-cry’ emoji on the post. You know they are absolutely losing their damn minds.
“The level of vitriol is disturbing, but one has to wonder if these people have any hobbies, other than yelling at people in the comment section.”
Washburn points to comments on unmoderated fan sites, like, “Stop with all this political crap!” and “You’re going to lose fans doing this!” and “YOUR ALL DOING SATINS WORK!” (sic), as reasons why franchise comments must stay turned off until July 1st, at least.
The Beaverton reached out the Blue Jays players for comment, but a spokesperson responded that they were all busy taking a communal shower.
