Posted by Jay Livingston
The US Open starts today. Not the real stuff, but the qualifying rounds for unknowns hoping for a spot in the draw. You can walk into the Tennis Center, no charge, and see some good matches. Who knows, you might see Federer or Venus working out on a practice court.
And after a long day swatting a little yellow ball back and forth, there’s nothing pro tennis players like better than to give money to the Democrats, even more than Nascar drivers give to Republicans (in absolute dollars, not in Red/Blue percentages).
Newsmeat has the data on presidential contributions from the sports world since 1978, and Andrew Gelman converted it into this nifty chart.
The numbers are slightly misleading. The big contributions come from the owners and executives, not the athletes (are Nascar drivers athletes?). Steinbrenner, Modell, Wilpon, et. al., have ponied up hundreds of thousands of dollars, and in a couple of cases, millions. The contributions of most of the players we see on the screen rarely spill out of four figures.
Andre Agassi gave $189,500, 95% to Democrats.
Good for Agassi. And his colleagues. I always did like tennis.
If you want to find me at the Open, check the men’s doubles matches. Why? See this (ungated, at least for the moment).
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