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How The NBA Learned To Embrace Activism

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How The NBA Learned To Embrace Activism

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Maxence
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How the NBA Learned to Embrace Activism

By Adam Criblez, time.com, April 19, 2024

5 Among the four major American sports leagues, the National Basketball Association alone leans
heavily into politics, openly embracing social justice as part of its core mission.

That wasn’t always the case: in 1980, commissioner Larry O’Brien painted an image of a league where
race barely mattered. “I don’t think that the owners think in terms of color,” O’Brien told reporters. “I
just don’t find anyone focusing on how many Blacks and whites are on the floor…[and] I feel the fan
10 and viewer basically is color-blind.” Philadelphia 76ers superstar forward Julius “Dr. J” Erving agreed,
telling Jet magazine, “The game transcends color.”

The shift over the past 40 years toward acknowledging issues of race and politics occurred largely
because the NBA’s fan base and audience changed. In 1980, most NBA fans were members of the
white middle-class with enough disposable income to attend games or purchase televisions on which
15 they could watch the few televised offerings. By contrast, in 2024, the league appeals to younger
American fans, whose politics lean left, as well as those representing a broadly diverse global
audience.

This transformation of the league’s fan base has changed the calculus on recognizing race and its
impact in American society. Instead of trying desperately to sidestep a potential political landmine,
20 like the other sports leagues do, the NBA and its players have become vocal proponents of social
change, even in the face of pushback from more conservative Americans.

The comments on race from Erving and O’Brien came at a moment of transition for the NBA. In 1970,
about half of NBA players were Black; a decade later, they held roughly three out of every four roster
spots league wide. In 1978, Milwaukee Bucks’ owner Marvin Fishman voiced a common sentiment
25 when he articulated that teams wanted a racial “mixture” on their rosters.

In October 1979, however, the New York Knicks defied that commonly held perception with a
seemingly innocuous roster move. The team released two journeymen forwards to pare their roster
down from 13 players to 11—the maximum any team could carry at the time. The story would have
merited little attention, but reporters realized that the two released forwards had been the only
30 white players on the Knicks’ roster. That meant the team now fielded the first all-Black roster in NBA
history.

Knicks officials insisted the decision had nothing to do with race. Madison Square Garden chairman
Sonny Werblin addressed reporters. “When you’re bad, you worry about getting good players,” he
said. “You don’t care whether they’re Black, white, green or red. There was no Black-white decision to
35 make, none whatsoever.”

Other owners, however, saw the Knicks’ decision as a misstep. “White people have to have white
heroes,” Cleveland Cavaliers’ owner Ted Stepien said. “I myself can’t equate to Black heroes, I’ll be
truthful. I respect them, but I need white people.”

O’Brien dismissed such thinking, confidently predicting that when the Knicks built a contending team,
40 “it will be reflected in attendance.” The commissioner understood that the percentage of the league’s
players who were Black was increasing and he hoped to cultivate Black attendance at NBA games, as
well as growing the league’s market share of Black television viewers.
As the league came to more fully embrace Black culture, it unsurprisingly recognized that social
justice issues were an important part of its brand and culture. “Part of the reason NBA players are
45 more active,” commissioner Silver explained in a 2018 interview, “is that it’s been part of the culture
of this league for generations and passed down to them.”

In 2020, after the shooting of Jacob Blake by Kenosha, Wis., police, the Milwaukee Bucks refused to
participate in a playoff game. The move put the NBA front and center in national debates over civil
and civic rights, even though the league had been politicized for decades.

50 Far from seeing social justice issues as problematic, Silver publicly embraced players’ activism. He
batted aside concerns that the tie with social justice could hurt the league. “I have no data that
suggests that people who were troubled by the NBA’s embrace of Black Lives Matter or our players’
positions on racial equality had a measurable impact on our ratings,” the commissioner noted. “And
in fact, I think there may have been a segment of our fan base that became additionally engaged with
55 the league as a result of the positions our players were espousing.”

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