And it was early on a Sunday morning. To anyone interested in a deeper dive into NFL culture I strongly recommend, Big Game by New York Times Magazine writer Mark Leibovich for an inside-the-suites sense of who says what to who when its more or less just them peer billionaires talking. Blank also contributed $28,500 to the Obama Victory Fund in 2008. Arthur is committed to changing the narrative around sports stadiums, said Frank Fernandez, the VP of Community Development at The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, to The Daily Beast. I know you see my partner, Bernie, on Fox News very often. And then he worked in the laundry. They want to have a home-field advantage. . The guest. Blank retired as Home Depot's co-chairman in. For years, Americans have fallen prey to the con of wealthy businessmen who want to build shiny new sports arenas yet dont want to pay for them. 1, Arthur Blank was born to Molly and Max Blank in Queens, New York. One of the beauties is that when you come to the stadium, it feels like it's the United Nations. But, you know, I think the word civility is terribly important today in the political world in which we just don't see it the way we need to see it. All those 25,000 tickets were gone. He fielded multiple quarterback-related questions and spoke glowingly of Ridder, who. Arthur Blank is firmly in Joe Biden's corner. To many Atlantans, myself included, leaving Turner Field was symbolic of the white flight that has defined the city since the 1960s. Since then, they have re-organized their focus areas more specifically into four groups: policy advocacy, organizing and civic engagement, impact litigation, and legal services. But my mother would say to me, You know, what you have to say is important. After cofounding Home Depot in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1978, Blank and Marcus helped put the do-it-yourself phenomenon on the map by offering the tools for personal home renovations. We had a different leader [Robert Nardelli ] in place that was eventually replaced. 3, By 1981, Home Depots stock went public and raised over $4 million. Expand. ", It is your duty not to burn your own house down for anger with an enemy We have to be better than this moment. Another Home. It is in effect protecting the teams owner, a guy regularly reviled by sportswriters, players and fans as a (very wealthy) toxic idiot. One where guys like the Vikings Mark and Zygi Wilf and Arthur (Home Depot) Blank of the Atlanta Falcons come off as comparatively rational. Enter your email address to be notified about new posts. GALEO has also handed out flyers at city events, supermarkets, and churches that target Latinos. So there was no disrespect to the military. It's an inverted pyramid that speaks to our whole orientation and all of our businesses today. stream Blank told Business Insider that despite their differences, running a company is "not a red issue or a blue issue" and is instead about sharing the same values. So, then we opened up The Home Depot. You need to figure out something else to do for the rest of your life. And after a while, he said, Would you please shut up? And she never did. And to be sure, Atlanta is better than what we saw in the actions of a few last night. With Enemies Like Scott Jensen, Who Needs Friends? He notes pervasive cynicism about corporate leaders and perceptions that the drive for profit comes at the expense of public good. With Labels, Listen to Affected Populations, Not Activists, As With Alcohol, Mitigation, Not Prohibition, Is the Answer, It Seems Democrats Are Blundering Badly (Again) with Their All-Abortion, All-the-Time Campaign. Arthur Blank, owner of Atlanta Falcons and Atlanta United, co-founder of Home Depot . In a statement released on the Mercedes-Benz Stadium Twitter account, attributed to Blank, he said Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation leadership conveyed his sentiment directly to state officials in recent weeks. I stayed in touch with him to some degree when he was in prison. The stadium boasts roughly 4,000 solar panels and will use 70 percent less energy. Arthur Blank co-founded the Home Depot in the late 1970s after being fired from a regional hardware store chain in Southern California. We've broken every season ticket record per game. Its also part memoir of how his ethics evolved from watching his father run a neighborhood pharmacy in Queens, New York, to launching multi-billion dollar ventures. Among Blanks diverse interests are the nationwide PGA Tour Superstore chain, three guest ranches in Montana, and a family foundation that counts millions in economic development investments on Atlantas beleaguered Westside among its $660-million outlay to date. But in any event, that was part of just being a good listener. I said, Paul? We are better than this We are better than this as a country. Here, using insidegov.com's database, are the disclosed political donations* for majority NFL owners dating back to the 2008 election. I seriously doubt the leagues TV ratings or ad revenue would suffer an iota. He had a gun on his lap, sitting on his right thigh. And we need to figure out, you know, how do we move past that and how do we learn from that and how do we get connected with our current reality? Arthur Blank (Atlanta Falcons owner and co-founder of Home Depot) 2020Joe Biden 2016Hillary Clinton 2012Barack Obama Maxine Clark (founder and former CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop) 2016Hillary Clinton Michael Eisner (former CEO of Disney) 2016Marco Rubio, then later Hillary Clinton 2016Kamala Harris Jack M. Greenberg (former CEO of McDonald's) The statement came about five days after Gov. I had another NFL player, while [Vick] was in prison, come visit me and say I came from exactly the same neighborhood, but it was in a part of Pittsburgh. So sadly, Michael was raised in an environment where that was kind of normal behavior, if you will. Born on September 27, 1942, Blank owns the Atlanta, Georgia sports teams - the Atlanta Falcons of the NFL and Atlanta United of the MLS. In order to put this grinding pandemic behind us once and for all? I mean, everybody's standing for an hour-and-a-half and they just don't sit down. So thats Gruden. Arthur blank politics The largest donation made to a political party by an Atlanta Falcons employee was by Arthur Blank. And they found ways to get things done with people who had a little bit a different view but found that commonality that was really important. Now, the last game we had in the Georgia Dome before we moved to Mercedes Benz Stadium in August of 2017, wewere honoring all of our ring of honor members and he was one of them. And, you know, living in poverty, we had friends coming by all the time and what have you. I felt and others felt that we could be successful here. In 2022, they plan to connect with over 1 million voters/ potential voters through phone banking, text banking, in-person canvassing events, and going door to door. Dr. Sanjay Gupta speaks with businessman Arthur Blank about gun regulation and philanthropy. Home Depot co-founders pictured in 1979, a year after the first store opened. The ones in Atlanta on Friday started off peaceful but later turned into violent demonstrations and looting of local businesses. meathead) culture inside the team formerly known as the Washington Redskins. This is not the legacy of civil rights in America. I said, Look, I'm going to be a new owner, tell me what I can do to help. They put my mother, my brother and I in the living room with one of them and the other was searching the house, looking for cash that wasn't there. !, Do not fall for this foolishness!!! . /SM 0.02 So, we had great confidence in our own abilities. These are the kinds of people we need in leadership today, not thinking about red, blue, purple. Paul, are you there? And Blanks role in this project extends beyond the stadium. One was in pricing. Were trying to do the exact opposite of that.. Home Depot cofounder, Arthur Blank, is a longtime Democratic supporter and donated $250,000 to committees supporting Joe Biden between July and September in 2020, Another Home Depot cofounder, Bernie Marcus, is an. This is not a protest. He came out of the prison system as a changed person for the positive, not for the negative. It is making no promises that it will reveal everything it has found out about the Redskins and others who had contact with the team. However, the Atlanta Falcons new home, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, may foster a new era of stadium construction and community engagement. %PDF-1.4 We hold all the records. Brian Kemp signed SB 202 into law. He would say, I don't need to be cut any slack, you know. It's good to be different, said Blank, but he said it's the intolerance of some that worries him about the future. So in this case, we were coming back from a game after the team had played in St. Louis against the old St. Louis Rams theyre now in L.A. and instead of riding in the front of the plane with the coaches and managers, I sat in the back with the players. authenticate users, apply security measures, and prevent spam and abuse, and, display personalised ads and content based on interest profiles, measure the effectiveness of personalised ads and content, and, develop and improve our products and services. The perceived linebetween politics and sports further blurred when Major League Baseball's union chief said players are ready to discuss moving the 2021 MLB All-Star Game out of Truist Park. I have what's called a veil state, or I am a stutterer. And I know he considers the blessings that we had coming from Home Depot [and what its done] for all of our philanthropy today and all of our businesses today to be something that we're very thankful for. He and his brother, Michael, were raised in a one-bedroom apartment. No, I'm not. I still remember this as if it was yesterday. They all have a great set of values. Like all stories meant to inspire, he takes some knocks. So when we started, MLS was ranked like 22nd among all the leagues in the world. Virginia Prescott is theGracie Award-winning host of On Second Thought for Georgia Public Broadcasting. When you find common solutions that work for everybody and [are] respectful of everybody to represent the best of you. I was gagged. /SA true Learn about careers at Cox Media Group. I mean, you write a book like this, it's really getting into kind of the political arena. The Falcons were the first pro football team in the South, founded during the civil rights era in 1965. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. You can change your choices at any time by clicking on the 'Privacy dashboard' links on our sites and apps. Their siblings, their families, you know, may have gone to battle and wore a variety of uniforms for our country over many, many years. What Does Hamline Not Understand About Academic Freedom? (Confidentiality, you know.) And that's all part of his story of redemption and his story of being a changed person. I concede, as others who know him personally have, that Im stunned that a guy like Gruden who has been a high-profile media/cultural presence for over 20 years, regularly giving live interviews, chewing up air time as a TV analyst and obliging all the other requests for personal contact that go with being a football celebritry could conceal his essential meat-headedness so long and so well. Continued: https://t.co/yePGJUaGVV, Ive got a lot of love and respect for police officers., We dont want to see Targets burning. 7) The Arthur M. Blank Foundation announced on Wednesday a new series of grants focusing on mental health and well-being in response to America's growing mental health crisis. Arthur Blank enjoys one of his favorite hobbies at Mountain Sky Guest Ranch, one of three guest ranches owned by Blank Family of Businesses. /Length 7 0 R Ticket pricing was higher than it could have been or should have been at that time, and so I brought Dick Sullivan over from Home Depot, the gentleman who now runs our PGA Superstores and we came up with a strategy that we've got to sell season's tickets for $100. Max died when Arthur was 15, leaving his mother to grow what became a multi-million-dollar business. However, peaceful protests really go back and look at the history of our country back to the Boston Tea Party. The family foundation has already invested over $20 million into the surrounding community. GPBs Virginia Prescott asked Blank about some of those stories in a conversationpresented in collaboration with Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlantas Book Festival in Your Living Room, the National JCC Literary Consortium and the Atlanta History Center. Founded in 2010 as the Asian American Legal Advocacy Center (AALAC), the organization became part of the Asian Americans Advancing Justice affiliation in 2014. And next thing I know, he was sitting on his knees and with a gun to his head. At the time, Atlanta liked to call itself The City Too Busy to Hate, but as more African Americans moved to the city the moniker shifted to The City Too Busy Moving to Hate, as more white Atlantans escaped the city to the northern suburbs. A number of events over the last couple of weeks have reminded us again that the long, worthy quest for equal justice, civility and unity in America is far from over. But he did. When you burn down this city, youre burning down our community., If you want change in America, go and register to vote. If you sit in your homes instead of burning your home to the ground, you will have time to properly plot, plan, strategize and organize and mobilize in effective ways., Two of the most effective ways is first taking your butt to the computer and making sure you fill out your census so that people know who you are and where you are.