Ron DeSantis blocks funds for Tampa Bay Rays after team’s gun safety tweets

The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, has defended his veto of $35m in funding for a potential spring training site for the Tampa Bay Rays, after the Major League Baseball team used social media to raise awareness about gun violence after mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas.

“I don’t support giving taxpayer dollars to professional sports stadiums,” DeSantis said on Friday, when asked about the veto of the sports complex funding.

“Companies are free to engage or not engage with whatever discourse they want, but clearly it’s inappropriate to be doing tax dollars for professional sports stadiums. It’s also inappropriate to subsidize political activism of a private corporation.”

On 26 May, in the wake of what they called “devastating events that took place in Uvalde, Buffalo and countless other communities across our nation”, the Rays said they would donate $50,000 to the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund and use their social media channels to offer facts about gun violence.

The New York Yankees also used social media to address the shootings, during a game between the two teams last week.

On Friday, citing an unnamed source, CNN reported that DeSantis’s decision to block the funding was influenced in part by the Rays’ tweets about the shootings.

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In Uvalde, an 18-year-old gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school. The shooting happened days after a gunman shot and killed 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo.

“In lieu of game coverage and in collaboration with the Tampa Bay Rays, we will be using our channels to offer facts about the impacts of gun violence,” the Yankees said in a statement.

“The devastating events