Alfredo Ortiz: MLB Pulling ASG from Georgia Will ‘Cost Upwards of $100 Million of Economic Damages’

Job Creators Network President and CEO Alfredo Ortiz on Monday reacted to Major League Baseball’s decision to pull its 2021 All-Star Game and Draft out of Atlanta over Georgia’s new election laws.

According to Ortiz, the decision to remove the two events will “cost upwards of $100 million of economic damages” to Georgia. The jobs expert pointed out that a lot of the businesses being hurt the most by a “misrepresentation” of the new law are “minority-owned businesses” that “desperately” needed the revenue.

“You know, representing small business owners across the country, and especially here in Georgia, of course, you know they are barely making it out of the COVID-19 crisis, out of this pandemic. And now they are faced under the Biden administration with potentially higher taxes, a higher minimum wage, more red tape and regulations, and now this. I mean, this was an opportunity that … it’s going to cost upwards of $100 million of economic damages and impact to the state,” Ortiz told FNC’s “Fox & Friends.” “These small business owners, especially in Cobb — I mean, a lot of these are minority-owned businesses that were really looking forward and desperately needed this kind of revenue instream. And all because quite frankly there was a misinterpretation or misunderstanding or quite frankly just an outright lie of the law that was passed here in Georgia on voting rights.”

“[T]he bottom line is that that law makes it easy to vote and hard to cheat,” he continued. “And now we have CEOs that quite frankly are taking that and perpetuating these myths or lies, quite frankly, that that led to the pull out of the MLB. And we’re very disappointed and very saddened because I expect that out of politicians and political talking heads and operatives like Joe Biden or Stacey Abrams, but I just don’t expect that out of our CEOs and corporations that I think should be held to a higher standard and need to be held accountable because they owe it to the public to speak to the truth.”

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