Tom Wilson, the CEO of Allstate, one of the major insurance companies sponsoring the Sugar Bowl, made a speech before the game that had a lot of people up in arms.
Wilson addressed the superdome crowd and ESPN viewers by saying, “Welcome to the Allstate Sugar Bowl. Wednesday, tragedy struck the New Orleans community. Our prayers are with the victims and their families. We also need to be stronger together by overcoming an addiction to divisiveness and negativity. Join Allstate working in local communities all across America to amplify the positive, increase trust and accept peoples’ imperfections and differences. Together we win.”
A whole lot of people took to X to express their outrage over the ill-timed remarks.
Pat Ryan of NewsTalk 103.7FM wondered, “Did they just step on the Bud Light landmine? Tom Wilson’s the CEO, probably the last guy who should be lecturing. I mean an insurance guy. You have seen what’s happening with insurance lately, haven’t you? You want to check yourself before you check the box when it comes to lecturing the community out there, apparently he didn’t get the ‘woke is broke’ memo.”
Attorney Clint Barkdoll said, “There is already a movement now online, a lot of people are saying they intend to cancel their Allstate policies. We’ve seen this movie before with Bud Light and various other corporations that stepped in it. He made these remarks after that terrorist attack. I guess he was in town for the Sugar Bowl, and it really looks like this is going to backfire on the company.”
Michele Jansen of NewsTalk 103.7FM said, “Honestly, the statement wasn’t that bad, except for he had to add accepting our differences, and it was just that last little statement that made it sound like he was supporting more of a woke thing. I will agree the addiction to divisiveness is DEI and equity. There’s so many studies that show how that does cause toxic environments and has caused more problems between us, not solving them the way they all were promised it would. So if he wouldn’t have maybe gone down that little extra road, or if he had made it clear, maybe that should be what’s called out as the divisiveness in the country. But now it’s being read the way it’s being read, and they may face consequences.”
