Because there’s a ton of money on the line. You have advertisers for the league, teams themselves may have agreements in place as well, and cities will have their own preferences. As soon as you start picking and choosing what is and isn’t allowed, you end up having to deal with all of those separate parties. Then you get player to player drama as well, like maybe there’s a hidden meaning behind the styles chosen for the players shoes or stick tape or whatever. All of that distracts from the sport itself.
It’s a lot easier to just enforce a uniform standard.
If the company says it’s ok to show your pride support on a specific day, why is it not ok to show that support on non-designated days? And don’t you see the unfair treatment you’re suggesting here?
Let’s say a store wants employees to wear a Christmas-related uniform only around Christmas time, and thinks wearing it in March is inappropriate. The company should absolutely be able to provide Christmas-themed clothes to be worn only from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, and not allow it before or after. It’s all part of their branding.
I don’t think it’s a big leap to apply the same logic to non-holiday themed attire, like breast cancer awareness, LGBT issues, black lives matter, etc. It makes sense for organizations to limit support to certain months or events where they want to send a coordinate message. And the rest of the time.
Whether leagues want to force players to wear support for certain causes is completely up to them and how much drama they want to risk from players choosing to sit out that game. But I think it should be up to the league what they allow and don’t allow, and in general, more strict standards is a lot simpler and reduces drama long-term.
As soon as you start picking and choosing what is and isn’t allowed, you end up having to deal with all of those separate parties.
That’s basically your whole responsibility if you decide to form and run a professional sports league (or be an employer in general) - define rules for your employees to follow, and deal with the edge cases in a fair manner. I think employers have an ethical responsibility to create a set of rules for their employees that don’t infringe on their employees’ basic rights. Preventing an employee form expressing an opinion (outside of an arbitrary employer-mandated time window) infringes on an employee’s basic rights.
All of that distracts from the sport itself.
You. All of that distracts you from the sport. There’s always going to be player to player drama, whether that’s because of something someone said during a press conference, or what cleats someone wore during a game. That’s one entertainment aspect of sports, player to player interactions. If you don’t like that aspect, that’s ok. Ignore it, or watch something else.
The company should absolutely be able to provide Christmas-themed clothes to be worn only from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, and not allow it before or after. It’s all part of their branding.
And I think that level of micromanagement and control is downright oppressive. I recognize that companies have the ability to put those restrictions on their employees, but I don’t think it’s right. As long as an employee isn’t hurting the business, causing harm, or breaking any laws, they should be allowed to wear whatever they want whenever they want, including a Christmas sweater in March, or a pride shirt in February. Unless you can give me a concrete downside to allowing employees to express themselves how they wish, as long as it falls within the loose bounds I’ve described above, I’m not going to be convinced otherwise.
It makes sense for organizations to limit support to certain months or events where they want to send a coordinate message.
For the organization, sure. At the organization level, you need to organize campaigns, social media posts, etc for that sort of thing. It makes sense to put time boxes on those things at the organization level. An individual employee is not “the organization” though. Individual employees, whether employers like it or not, have thoughts and ideas outside of the organization’s time boxes sometimes. And again, as long as those ideas don’t hurt the business, don’t break the law, and don’t harm others, and especially if those thoughts and ideas are held by the organization at some point in the year, employees should be free to express those ideas on whatever schedule they wish. And if an employer is an actual supporter of causes like pride, or cancer awareness, or BLM, or whatever else, they should encourage their employees to show their support for those same causes whenever they want, not just the company mandated support month. What’s the harm? Honestly, what harm will come if a person who works for an organization that supports breast cancer awareness, wears their breast cancer awareness shirt in April, and then again along with everyone else in October?
more strict standards is a lot simpler and reduces drama long-term.
You say “reduces drama”, I say “encourages and enables employers to be thought police”.
Because there’s a ton of money on the line. You have advertisers for the league, teams themselves may have agreements in place as well, and cities will have their own preferences. As soon as you start picking and choosing what is and isn’t allowed, you end up having to deal with all of those separate parties. Then you get player to player drama as well, like maybe there’s a hidden meaning behind the styles chosen for the players shoes or stick tape or whatever. All of that distracts from the sport itself.
It’s a lot easier to just enforce a uniform standard.
Let’s say a store wants employees to wear a Christmas-related uniform only around Christmas time, and thinks wearing it in March is inappropriate. The company should absolutely be able to provide Christmas-themed clothes to be worn only from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, and not allow it before or after. It’s all part of their branding.
I don’t think it’s a big leap to apply the same logic to non-holiday themed attire, like breast cancer awareness, LGBT issues, black lives matter, etc. It makes sense for organizations to limit support to certain months or events where they want to send a coordinate message. And the rest of the time.
Whether leagues want to force players to wear support for certain causes is completely up to them and how much drama they want to risk from players choosing to sit out that game. But I think it should be up to the league what they allow and don’t allow, and in general, more strict standards is a lot simpler and reduces drama long-term.
That’s basically your whole responsibility if you decide to form and run a professional sports league (or be an employer in general) - define rules for your employees to follow, and deal with the edge cases in a fair manner. I think employers have an ethical responsibility to create a set of rules for their employees that don’t infringe on their employees’ basic rights. Preventing an employee form expressing an opinion (outside of an arbitrary employer-mandated time window) infringes on an employee’s basic rights.
You. All of that distracts you from the sport. There’s always going to be player to player drama, whether that’s because of something someone said during a press conference, or what cleats someone wore during a game. That’s one entertainment aspect of sports, player to player interactions. If you don’t like that aspect, that’s ok. Ignore it, or watch something else.
And I think that level of micromanagement and control is downright oppressive. I recognize that companies have the ability to put those restrictions on their employees, but I don’t think it’s right. As long as an employee isn’t hurting the business, causing harm, or breaking any laws, they should be allowed to wear whatever they want whenever they want, including a Christmas sweater in March, or a pride shirt in February. Unless you can give me a concrete downside to allowing employees to express themselves how they wish, as long as it falls within the loose bounds I’ve described above, I’m not going to be convinced otherwise.
For the organization, sure. At the organization level, you need to organize campaigns, social media posts, etc for that sort of thing. It makes sense to put time boxes on those things at the organization level. An individual employee is not “the organization” though. Individual employees, whether employers like it or not, have thoughts and ideas outside of the organization’s time boxes sometimes. And again, as long as those ideas don’t hurt the business, don’t break the law, and don’t harm others, and especially if those thoughts and ideas are held by the organization at some point in the year, employees should be free to express those ideas on whatever schedule they wish. And if an employer is an actual supporter of causes like pride, or cancer awareness, or BLM, or whatever else, they should encourage their employees to show their support for those same causes whenever they want, not just the company mandated support month. What’s the harm? Honestly, what harm will come if a person who works for an organization that supports breast cancer awareness, wears their breast cancer awareness shirt in April, and then again along with everyone else in October?
You say “reduces drama”, I say “encourages and enables employers to be thought police”.