In protest of the Jacob Blake shooting, several NBA teams had playoff games postponed.
Sports have never seen the reaction that this one act set forth in America. Players on the MLB and MLS teams made sure that they stopped play on the next day too. The WNBA also paused its season.
The players wanted to stand up to the police brutality that has been prevalent over the years and send a message against it. In the middle of it all, another message became clear. That message is that people are willing to follow the NBA’s biggest stars.
Apparently, professional basketball is always ahead of the rest of the country when social justice is concerned.
The NFL has had difficulties dealing with Colin Kaepernick’s activism, and the MLB hasn’t been able to address race and justice in a coherent way.
The NHL also came to the party late. The WNBA and the MLS are powerful, but they are not nearly as influential as the NBA.
The NBA has reasons that its activism keeps going strong, and it is because of sheer numbers.
Black Males Are Abundantly Represented in Professional Basketball.
The sport with the largest number of Black players is the sport of basketball. Last year, approximately 74% of basketball players considered themselves to be Black, and another 83% of this group of people identified themselves as “people of color” according to The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports.
In contrast, only 59% of NFL players identified as Black in 2019, and 8.4% of players in the MLB identified themselves as Black in 2018.
We see a similar trend in leadership roles. In July, 32% of the NBA’s general managers considered themselves to be Black. When the 2019 season began, 23% of the head coaches were also Black.
If we just look at these statistics, it doesn’t paint a very positive picture because most of the league’s players are Black. However, these numbers are higher than in any other professional sports leagues.
We shouldn’t be surprised to learn that the spectators are also represented in the same numbers. FiveThirtyEight conducted an analysis of this situation, and it discovered that fans of the NBA are more liberal than fans of any other sport. This means that the fans would be receptive to progressive messages about racial justice.
The Players Know that They Are Stars.
The NBA spends more time focusing on individual players. According to Jamal Murphy, the NBA has more stars than the other sports.
These stars are also earning the most money, so people are listening to them on social media. Therefore, their words are more powerful.
The way it is today isn’t the way that it has always been, but now, superstars like LeBron James and Chris Paul are dedicated to racial justice. They are allowing their influence to show, and this is how it will be from now on.
According to Murphy, the top players are even willing to stop playing because they have seen that they have an incredible amount of power and influence. Jamal Murphy believes that we might see more activism from the other leagues as well.
Basketball Players Have Always Been Activists.
In 1961 during the Civil Rights Movement, Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics declined to play an exhibition game after he and two other players were denied service at their hotel. They were joined by five more of their teammates and two players from the opposing team. Russell voiced his support for what the players are doing today.
The other leagues were forced to limit the protests that their athletes could make because of Colin Kaepernick’s protests, but the NBA allowed its players to raise their voices on this issue.
President Trump expressed his opposition to the tactic, but the leagues never backed down.
After the deaths of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and Eric Garner in 2014, the unrest that came after the election in 2016, and the Black Lives Matter movements that went across the country, the players have been leaders of this movement.
We can expect the activism that the boycotts encouraged to continue on into the future.
NBA players are not against walking away from their sport if it can lead them toward racial justice.
They are willing to risk everything to reach that end goal.
