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Orlando Magic celebrates Pride Night for the first time

By Ruben Badillo

Oct 26, 2016; Orlando, FL, USA; Orlando Magic raise a banner displaying the number 49 to commemorate the lives lost in the Pulse nightclub shooting before the game against the Miami Heat at Amway Center. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Oct 26, 2016; Orlando, FL, USA; Orlando Magic raise a banner displaying the number 49 to commemorate the lives lost in the Pulse nightclub shooting before the game against the Miami Heat at Amway Center. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Orlando Magic will be hosting their first ever “Pride Night,” celebrating the LGBTQ community, during their March 6 game against the New York Knicks.

The Orlando Magic will host their first ever “Pride Night” to celebrate the LGBTQ community in Orlando during the Magic’s March 6 game against the New York Knicks, the team announced.

The Magic are not the only team that has done “Pride Night,” teams like the Brooklyn Nets, Milwaukee Bucks, Portland Trail Blazers, and Detroit Pistons have all done a “Pride Night” to celebrate local LGBTQ communities. The Chicago Bulls earlier this year are believed to be the first team to host a same-sex wedding proposal during a game, including the Tampa Bay Lightning earlier this week.

Teams in the NBA are becoming much more openly inclusive of the LGBTQ community. Teams in several sports have long held “Pride Nights” to varying effectiveness.

For Orlando, recognizing the LGBTQ community is a bit more personal.

The decision to hold a “Pride Night” celebrating the LGBTQ community appears to be spurred by this summer’s attack at the Pulse Night Club near downtown Orlando. Pulse was one of the most popular gay bars in the city and the attack on the club was a vicious hate crime on Orlando’s LGBTQ community.

The entire community rallied together to support the victims and the LGBTQ community in the event’s aftermath in June.

The DeVos family and the Orlando Magic, together donated $500,000 to the One Orlando Fund, a nonprofit created to help assist families impacted by the mass shooting at Pulse. Magic CEO Alex Martins was the director of the One Orlando Fund and oversaw the disbursement of the donated funds to the victims and their families.

On Oct. 26, 2016, the Orlando Magic unveiled a banner with the number 49 that will hang over the court at Amway Center. The number 49 displays in the front of the banner, along with “Orlando United” on the front. All 49 of the victim’s names are printed on the back of the banner.

The team also took a moment of silence to remember those who were lost that night. After the team unveiled the banner, Brandon Parsons performed and sang “Forty-Nine Times”.

Reaching out to the LGBTQ community became a natural extension of the Magic’s extensive community outreach programs.

"“We’ve always done Black History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, Latin Night; we’ve always done everything,” Orlando Magic vice president of philanthropy and multicultural insights Linda Landman Gonzalez told Watermark Online, a local LGBTQ publication. ” As we looked at whether or not we’ve communicated with our full community, at the back of our mind has been how do we get involved with the LGBT community on a real relationship-type , partnership basis. As you know, the league, the NBA, has done a lot.”"

While the Magic have remained very inclusive, the LGBTQ community may look at these efforts with some skepticism.

The DeVos family has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to groups that oppose marriage equality and campaigned against marriage equality measures. Several pro-LGBTQ groups have an active boycott against Amway, the company Rich DeVos founded, and DeVos-owned properties, including the Orlando Magic.

Gonzalez told Watermark Online the team is aware of this perception. She stressed the separation between the Magic and the DeVos family’s donations to these dubious groups. The Magic want to be committed to the Orlando community as a whole.

"“The only way I can say this is that we have made it very clear from day one that what people do is what they do, but we’re not in agreement, nor does it reflect how the Orlando Magic or the Orlando Magic Youth Foundation wants to support, and we are not included in any of those investments or even conversations,” Landman Gonzalez said. “No one can say this organization, the Orlando Magic, has not been an incredible neighbor. I mean, we have never, ever, thought ourselves of being a neighbor of few. We’re a neighbor of everyone.”"

Next: Projecting the Orlando Magic after the All-Star Break

Orlando Magic’s Pride Night is on March 6 against the New York Knicks at 7 p.m. Visit orlandomagic.com/pridenight for more details and tickets.