The Orlando Magic donated $50,000 to Never Back Down, the political action committee supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s (R-FL) presidential run, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
SFGATE politics editor Alex Shultz called it “possibly the largest political donation attributed to an NBA organization.”
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team owners dumping money on presidential candidates (especially conservatives) is not new; in this case, it’s very odd that, when given the opportunity, the organization isn’t distancing itself from the DeSantis donation
— Alex Shultz (@AlexShultz) August 1, 2023
The Florida-based NBA team resides in Orlando, Florida, where DeSantis is governor. It is owned by RDV Sports, Inc., a company founded by the late Amway billionaire Richard DeVos. His son Dan DeVos is the chairman of the basketball team and is the brother-in-law of former President Donald Trump’s secretary of education, Betsy DeVos.
The NBA team is also sponsored by Disney, another Orlando-based company. Disney has been at war with the governor over Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Bill, a law that bans classroom instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade and called on all instruction to be “age appropriate,” allowing parents to sue schools and educators for violating this policy.
In April last year, DeSantis signed a bill revoking the special status of Reedy Creek Improvement District, the district governing Walt Disney World. The governor on Tuesday abolished the district’s diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
DeSantis recently received sharp criticism from Vice President Kamala Harris about the state’s recent guidelines on teaching the African American experience. She claimed the curriculum contained lessons that slaves developed skills that, “in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” The Florida governor clapped back at the vice president, saying that she was “maligning” his state and he wanted to “set the record straight” by inviting her to a debate. On Tuesday, Harris rejected his offer.
“Imagine being desperate enough to be thirsty for a Kamala visit,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said about the governor on X, the social media company formerly known as Twitter, on Monday.
New Orleans Pelicans forward Larry Nance Jr. criticized the management of the Orlando Magic for the donation to the pro-DeSantis PAC.
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“So the @OrlandoMagic who have a majority black roster, a black head coach, and a black GM decided it was a good idea to support a man that claims that slavery had personal benefits for the enslaved?” Nance posted to X.
The filing of the super PAC recently showed that fundraising significantly slowed after he launched his campaign. The DeSantis campaign had to lay off more than one-third of its staff in a campaign shake-up to realign its efforts in late July. The PAC has had success in pulling away large donations from GOP donors who previously backed former President Donald Trump.
