A business advocacy group has filed a lawsuit against Major League Baseball after the league decided to move the 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver earlier this year.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and NBC News report that an organization called the Job Creators Network filed the lawsuit in a federal court in New York Monday. It seeks $100 million in damages for businesses in Atlanta and the surrounding areas.
In a statement, the Job Creators Network accused the league of stealing cash from the pockets of Atlanta-area business owners.
"MLB robbed the small businesses of Atlanta – many of them minority-owned – of $100 million, we want the game back where it belongs," said Alfredo Ortiz, the president and CEO of the Job Creators Network in a statement.
The lawsuit also names MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, Player's Associated President Tony Clark as defendants.
The suit comes about two months after MLB announced it was moving the All-Star game in response to a Georgia state law that restricts voting access in the state. The Georgia law is one of many that Republicans have introduced in statehouses across the country.
"Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box," Manfred said in a statement in announcing the decision to move the game out of Atlanta. "...fair access to voting continues to have our game's unwavering support."
According to its website, the Job Creators Network was founded by Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus with the belief that "many government policies are getting in the way of the economic freedom that helped make this country prosperous."
The 2021 MLB All-Star Game will now take place on July 13 at Coors Field in Denver, the home of the Colorado Rockies.
The MLB isn't the first sports league to move an All-Star Game in response to a controversial state bill. In 2016, the NBA announced it would not host the 2017 All-Star Game in Charlotte over a North Carolina bill that required people in the state to use public restrooms based on the gender listed on their birth certificates.
