The Times - UK (2020-08-28)

68 2GM Friday August 28 2020 | the times

Sport

I

t was perfectly timed for the

coronavirus lockdown. In April,

as ambulance sirens wailed

through the country’s empty

streets, layoffs began to take hold

and live sports were cancelled,

millions of Americans sat down on

Sunday nights in front of The Last

Dance, a ten-part documentary about

Michael Jordan, 57, arguably the

greatest basketball player of all time.

This was not a political series: when

Barack Obama popped up as a talking

head to hail Jordan’s talents he was

described as a “former Chicago

resident”.

But a segment in episode five

underscored how much the

relationship between sports stars and

American society has transformed

since Jordan’s days shooting hoops for

the Bulls.

In 1990 Jesse Helms, an opponent

of civil-rights laws, was running for a

fourth six-year team representing

Unlike Jordan, today’s stars will not be remaining quiet

Analysis Henry Zeffman North Carolina, Jordan’s home state,

in the Senate. His Democratic

challenger, Harvey Gantt, would have

been the state’s first African-

American senator. Jordan declined to

lend Gantt his star power.

“Republicans buy sneakers too,” he

quipped, in reference to the lucrative

Air Jordan shoes sold by Nike.

“I never thought of myself as an

activist,” Jordan told the documentary

makers 30 years on. “I thought of

myself as a basketball player. I wasn’t

a politician when I was playing my

sport.”

Today’s basketball players see it

differently. “F*** THIS MAN!!!,”

tweeted LeBron James, the Los

Angeles Lakers small forward, whose

talents are frequently likened to

Jordan’s, shortly after the Milwaukee

Bucks initiated the NBA strike in the

wake of the police shooting of Jacob

Blake, a black man, on Sunday in

Kenosha, Wisconsin — 40 miles from

Milwaukee. “WE DEMAND

CHANGE. SICK OF IT”.

That James, 35, and stars of many

other sports rushed to support the

Bucks’ stand shows how rapidly the

relationship between sports and

activism has changed, not just since

Jordan’s day but in the past few years.

The boycott came four years to the

day after Colin Kaepernick, an NFL

quarterback for the San Francisco

49ers, refused for the first time to

stand for the national anthem, a

protest against racism that later

developed into taking a knee.

Kaepernick, 32, was joined through

the NFL season by many fellow

players but their protests enraged the

conservative sections of the sport’s

fan base. NFL viewership fell by 8 per

cent, and surveys suggested the main

reason was the protests.

President Trump helped to fuel the

furore by calling on franchise owners

to “fire” footballers who protested

during the national anthem.

None of the NFL’s 32 teams were

willing to sign Kaepernick for the

following season and he has been a

free agent since. In February 2019 he

reached a confidential settlement

with the league after filing a

grievance.

It is a testament to how far

attitudes have shifted that this week

— before the NBA episode — Roger

Goodell, the NFL commissioner,

apologised publicly to Kaepernick. In

an interview with Emmanuel Acho, a

black former linebacker, he said: “I

wish we had listened earlier, Kaep, to

what you were kneeling about and

what you were trying to bring

attention to.”

In another sign that corporate

America’s willingness to challenge the

country’s racial divisions is developing

quickly, the Bucks’ three main owners

— Marc Lasry, Wes Edens (also the

majority owner of Aston Villa) and

Jamie Dinan — were quick to release

a statement supporting their players.

“We will continue to stand alongside

them and demand accountability and

change,” they said.

It may be tempting to put their

support for the strike down to politics:

all three are major Democratic

donors and Lasry has been

fundraising for Joe Biden since his

first presidential run more than 30

years ago. But there is plenty of

evidence that American attitudes to

racial injustice have changed quickly

at all rungs of society, especially since

the killing of George Floyd in

Minneapolis in May.

Support for Black Lives Matter,

acknowledgement of widespread

discrimination against African-

Americans and unfavourable views of

the police all rose by at least ten

percentage points after the post-Floyd

protests, which were supported by

nearly two thirds of Americans.

That change has been fuelled by

the shifting perspective of white

people, which is one big reason why,

even though Republicans still buy

sneakers, America’s sports stars will

not be going quiet any time soon.

6 Henry Zeffman is Washington

Correspondent for The Times.

the movement.” That followed the news

that the NBA players decided, after a

meeting yesterday, to resume the play-

offs. Speculation had begun to grow that

the season — taking place in a biosecure

bubble at Disneyworld in Florida since

its resumption after the Covid-19

lockdown — would be called off.

LeBron James, the Los Angeles

Lakers player regarded as one of the

greatest basketballers in history and an

influential voice in the sport, had

reportedly called for the season to end,

with the support of the LA Clippers star,

Kawhi Leonard. However, a solution

was reached and a reshuffled schedule

of games is due to continue today, after

last night’s matches stayed postponed.

Yesterday, President Trump waded

into the row. “I think people are tired of

the NBA, frankly,” he said, adding that

the league was a “political organisa-

tion” with “very bad” television ratings.

Wednesday marked exactly four

years since Colin Kaepernick, the

former NFL quarterback, protested

against racially motivated police

brutality, first by sitting during the

national anthem, then by taking a knee.

As the gesture grew in popularity

across the league, Trump said that any-

one who knelt during the anthem

“maybe shouldn’t be in the country”.

Kaepernick, 32, who led the San

Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl in

the 2012 season, hasn’t played in the

NFL since 2016.

The latest sporting protest had begun

on Wednesday when the Bucks, leading

3-1 in their seven-match series against

Orlando, did not emerge from their

locker room for practice.

“Despite the overwhelming plea for

change, there has been no action, so our

focus today cannot be on basketball,” a

statement from the Bucks players read.

“We are calling for justice for Jacob

Blake and demand the officers be held

accountable.”

Barack Obama, the former US presi-

dent, tweeted his support. “I commend

the Bucks players for standing up for

what they believe in,” he wrote.

Inter Miami, the Major League

Soccer team owned by David Beckham,

walked off the pitch along with Atlanta

United before their match. League

organisers later announced that this

was one of five games to be postponed.

Dell Loy Hansen, who owns the MLS

club Real Salt Lake, said he felt “disre-

spected” by the postponement of his

club’s game against Los Angeles FC,

which angered Nedum Onuoha.

The former Manchester City and

Queens Park Rangers defender, who

now plays for Real Salt Lake, said the

comment was enough to make him

want to leave. “I’m not here to play for

someone who isn’t here to support us,”

the 33-year-old said. “We are trying to

create a bigger conversation but a lot of

the people who are in power don’t em-

pathise or sympathise or do anything.

They are more concerned with them-

selves.”

In a day of unprecedented turbulence

across American sport, top basketball

players pushed for the NBA season to

be abandoned and the world’s best-paid

female athlete withdrew from a high-

profile tennis tournament in protest

against racial injustice.

Boycotts followed in football and

baseball on Wednesday, while NFL

teams joined in yesterday, but a resolu-

tion was reached last night to save the

NBA play-offs, while Naomi Osaka was

persuaded to change her mind and play

in the Western & Southern Open.

The catalyst for the action was the

shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday. The

29-year-old African-American was

paralysed from the waist down after he

was shot seven times in the back by

police in Kenosha, Wisconsin. The

incident was captured on video and

witnessed by his three children.

The Milwaukee Bucks, based 40

miles from Kenosha, refused to practise

before their play-off game against

Orlando Magic, prompting the NBA to

call off that and two other matches on

Wednesday night, leading to the pro-

spect of a premature end to the season.

Five games in Major League Soccer

and three in Major League Baseball

were also called off. Yesterday, nine

American football teams — including

the Green Bay Packers, of Wisconsin —

cancelled their practice, two weeks

before the NFL season is due to kick off.

In tennis, the semi-finals of the

Western & Southern Open in New

York were suspended after Osaka,

the Japanese-American world

No 10, announced her withdrawal.

“As a black woman I feel as

though there are much more im-

portant matters that need

immediate attention,

rather than watching

me play tennis,” Osaka

tweeted. “I don’t

expect anything

drastic to happen

with me not playing

but if I can get a con-

versation started in

a majority white

sport I consider that a

step in the right

direction.

“Watching the con-

tinued genocide of black

people at the hand of the

police is honestly making

me sick to my stomach. When

will it ever be enough?”

Yesterday, however, the

22-year-old agreed to

play her semi-final

against Elise Mertens,

which was delayed by

24 hours to today.

“After my announce-

ment and lengthy con-

sultation with the

WTA and USTA, I

have agreed at their

request to play on Fri-

day,” she said. “They

offered to postpone all

matches until Friday

and in my mind that

brings more attention to

US sport reels after day of protest

Stuart Fraser How different sports reacted

American football

With the NFL season two weeks

away, nine teams cancelled their

practice sessions yesterday

Baseball

Three games were called off on

Wednesday; three more yesterday

Basketball

Milwaukee Bucks’ boycott led to

their match and two others being

postponed. Women’s NBA players

wore T-shirts with seven bullet holes

to represent the shooting of Blake

Football

A boycott by Inter Miami and

Atlanta United led to five games

being called off

AL BELLO/GETTY IMAGES

Osaka initially

refused to play,

while James,

below, was

reportedly in

favour of the

NBA season

being cancelled