Women's sports fans call for Koch family, acquiring piece of (progressive) WNBA's NY Liberty, to contribute $15 million to reproductive justice & civic engagement

From W.S. Rally

OK, I've previously pooh-poohed (link) criticism of the notorious Koch family buying a slice of the Brooklyn Nets, given that the #sportswashing of ethically dubious owners--Bruce Ratner, Mikhail Prokhorov, Joe Tsai--started long ago, and the Barclays Center is named for a felonious bank.

But the New York Liberty fans at W.S. (Women's Sports) Rally who started a protest and petition two days ago, just in time for the transaction, do have a point, proclaiming "Julia Koch, before you buy ownership in BSE (NY Liberty & BK Nets) — show the fans, players, Brooklyn and the W that you share our values!"

They say the WNBA, and its teams, are already identified with progressive politics antithetical to the Kochs' legacy, and the Kochs--notably David's widow Julia and her basketball fan son David, Jr.-- should show solidarity by making a major--and surely painless--charitable contribution of $15 million toward reproductive justice and civic engagement.

Upping the ante

The current in-season tournament, the Commissioner’s Cup (presented, um, by Coinbase) features a platform through which the League makes charitable contributions to non-profit organizations aligned to the teams’ social justice work. 

During play--and the Liberty are in the finals tomorrow night at UBS Arena-- each team accumulates donation dollars that will be presented to their charitable organization at the conclusion of the Commissioner’s Cup Championship.

For each cup game, winning teams earned a monetary donation of $3,000 for their chosen local organization; losing teams earned $1,000. The tourney winner will generate an additional $10,000 donation and the runner-up will generate $5,000.

Women's rights?

The New York Liberty will be playing for Women Creating Change. The Minnesota Lynx will be playing for Gender Justice. 

Meanwhile, the W.S. Rally post points to a Nov. 5, 2013 Salon article, The Koch brothers are secretly funding the anti-choice movement's worst offenders, including anti-reproductive rights groups like the Susan B. Anthony List, Americans United for Life and the Concerned Women for America Legislative Action Committee--which, it should be pointed out, recently achieved their goal of overturning Roe v. Wade and getting abortion outlawed or curtailed in many states.

Laying out the stakes

W.S. Rally, organized by Caroline FitzGerald, points out that the Koch family would have the first option to buy the Nets and Liberty and, while Julia "takes no real public positions," her ties to broader Koch activities--industry and charity--"are undeniable."

For now, "there is no evidence to suggest that Julia and David, Jr. align their values with those of the WNBA, NY Liberty, and the fan community."

As to $15 million, a tiny fraction of the $688 million the Kochs are putting up, the petition points out that it would represent .023% of the Kochs' $65.6 billion fortune, or the equivalent of 15 bucks for someone earning $66,000.

If this proceeds--and of course it's unlikely but could make some headway--it would be a notable change from the donor-led philanthropy that the Koch family and the Tsais manage, with little oversight or scrutiny.

Commenters on Reddit noted that the WNBA isn't so ethically clean, given the Barclays patch on the Liberty's jersey and "Saudi money"--actually from Qatar, also where women's rights are significantly curtailed--"in the Mystics ownership group."

Image here and below from Change.org petition