Orlando Magic Owner Can't Separate Politics From Basketball

I've always believed in the separation of sports and politics. I've had to -- after all, the owner of the Tigers (and Red Wings) is Mike Ilitch, a major donor to conservative politicians and causes.

Still, this column in The Nation by Dave Zirin about the owner of the Orlando Magic makes it a little easier to stomach the Lakers' victory.

Zirin writes that Magic owner Richard DeVos "operates the Magic like the sporting arm of a radical right- wing empire whose reach extends from makeup to militias."

He concludes that subsidies for the Magic's new arena are traveling pretty directly into the coffers of conservative organizations:

It's a frighteningly effective political money-laundering scheme: our tax dollars are being funneled through a stadium and into the pockets of the DeVos family, where they are then spit out into think tanks, activist organizations and political efforts that most Americans would find noxious.

I enjoyed reading Zirin's book about sports and politics a few years back. I don't think we should be picking and choosing which sports teams to cheer for based on the political leanings of their ownership, but for an NBA championship series in which I didn't particularly like either team, learning things like this can help push me in one direction.