“Major League Baseball is being sued over its move of next month’s All-Star game out of Atlanta. A 21-page lawsuit by conservative small-business advocacy organization Job Creators Network, filed Monday in federal court in New York, demands the immediate return of the game to Atlanta and $100 million in damages to local and state small businesses. The suit also seeks $1 billion in punitive damages. MLB, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, the MLB Players Association and MLBPA executive director Tony Clark are named as defendants in the suit.”

“MLB announced April 2 that it would move the All-Star game, which had been scheduled for Truist Park, out of Georgia in response to the state’s new voting law. The July 13 event was awarded to Denver the following week. ‘MLB robbed the small businesses of Atlanta – many of them minority-owned – of $100 million, we want the game back where it belongs,’ Alfredo Ortiz, president and CEO of the Job Creators Network, said in a news release late Monday night announcing the litigation. ‘This was a knee-jerk, hypocritical and illegal reaction to misinformation about Georgia’s new voting law which includes Voter-ID. Major League Baseball itself requests ID at will-call ticket windows at Yankee Stadium in New York, Busch Stadium in St. Louis and at ballparks all across the country.’ The Players Association has no comment on the lawsuit, a spokesman said Tuesday. The MLB commissioner’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Manfred previously said he ‘decided that the best way to demonstrate our values as a sport is by relocating this year’s All-Star game,’ adding: ‘Major League Baseball fundamentally supports voting rights for all Americans and opposes restrictions to the ballot box'” – Atlanta Journal-Constitution.