Socialism’s latest strike against success had a Senate hopeful targeting owners of a professional baseball team on their own network, lamenting a past trade while allegedly violating “advertising standards.”
Ahead of the June 9 primary, polling has placed Graham Platner as the likely Democratic candidate to face off against incumbent Sen. Susan Collins (R) of Maine come fall. Added to a growing list of controversy, including a covered-up tattoo and a “trove of disgusting posts,” the oyster farmer campaigning with Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) had an ad pulled from the airwaves after taking a shot at the owners of the Boston Red Sox on the team’s New England Sports Network (NESN).
Earning millions of views since it was posted to social media Friday, the ad’s narration featured Platner contending, “Private equity has destroyed our favorite baseball team, stripping them for parts,” under the caption, “Private equity is taking our homes. It’s taking our hospitals. It’s taking beloved local businesses and stripping them for parts. And now private equity is running the Red Sox into the ground.”
Private equity is taking our homes. It’s taking our hospitals. It’s taking beloved local businesses and stripping them for parts.
And now private equity is running the Red Sox into the ground.
Our new ad ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/w7LapElpdA
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) May 22, 2026
“Private equity is buying up our homes, our sports, and our lives. I will reverse the private equity curse,” he insisted before concluding with a personal note about a trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers from six years prior. “I’m Graham Platner, and I approve this message because I miss Mookie Betts.”
John W. Henry’s Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Boston Red Sox, Pittsburgh Penguins, Liverpool F.C., and more, advanced an alliance with RedBird Capital Partners when the firm acquired an 11% ownership stake of the Red Sox, a point referenced in the ad citing a March 2021 article from Axios.
In their own statement on the ad’s removal during the Friday telecast of the 8-6 loss to the Minnesota Twins, the network told the New York Times, “NESN removes advertisements when credible concerns arise regarding the use of intellectual property.”
“The advertisement in question was removed because the creative included unauthorized use of third-party intellectual property and did not comply with NESN’s advertising standards,” continued the statement without addressing precisely what intellectual property was in question.
Without specifically challenging the legitimacy of NESN’s position, former Federal Communications Commission official Gigi Sohn remarked to the newspaper that, though “often used legitimately,” claims of intellectual property violations are “often used as a smoke screen for copyright holders to not carry or to censor content they don’t like.”
According to a report from the Liverpool Echo, though Henry had avoided political donations during the 2020 presidential race, both he and FSG have a history of skewing in favor of Democrats.
As for the ad getting pulled, Platner turned that to his narrative advantage and argued on social media, “Yesterday we started running this ad during the Red Sox game. Midway through the game the ad was taken down by the station (which is owned by Red Sox ownership). And then the Sox blew a 4-0 lead.”
Yesterday we started running this ad during the Red Sox game.
Midway through the game the ad was taken down by the station (which is owned by Red Sox ownership).
And then the Sox blew a 4-0 lead. https://t.co/3Ilim6xQ9f
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) May 23, 2026
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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