President Trump has never been fond of professional athletes’ public attempts to address social issues. He scolded the NFL and Colin Kaepernick for taking a knee, and he’s similarly reprimanded NBA players for protesting.
In response to the NBA striking on Wednesday and cancelling a night of playoff games, President Trump was not on board with the players initiative. Rather than turn it into a productive conversation, the President used the NBA players’ call for social justice as an opportunity to take a shot at the league’s TV ratings since they restarted the season last month.
“I know their ratings are very bad because I think people are a little tired of the NBA, frankly,” Trump said during his Thursday briefing. “But I don’t know too much about the protests, but I know their ratings have been very bad and that’s unfortunate. They have become like a political organization. And that’s not a good thing. I don’t think that’s a good thing for sports or for the country.”
Ratings have been down since the NBA restarted from a bubble, but playoff games in August are an unprecedented situation and difficult to compare to past seasons. Normally every playoff game is played in prime time, but telecasts from the bubble have occupied odd dayparts because of limited court space in Orlando. Regardless of the ratings performance, the fanatical response to Wednesday night’s cancelled games signals a clear interest in the league.
Similarly, the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner believes NBA players’ one-night strike was an empty form of protest. “There’s a lot of activism, and I think that they’ve put a lot of slogans out,” Kushner said of the NBA during an interview with Politico. “But I think what we need to do is turn that from slogans and signals to actual action that’s going to solve the problem.”
Questioning NBA players’ action and assuming they’re not working to actually improve societal issues is simply an uninformed judgment by Kushner. As an example of action, LeBron James partnered with other athletes and entertainers to create the ‘More Than A Vote’ organization after he called the voting system “structurally racist” in June. The organization aims to encourage Black voters to participate in elections.
Brandon Contes is a former reporter for BSM, now working for Awful Announcing. You can find him on Twitter @BrandonContes or reach him by email at Brandon.Contes@gmail.com.
