eBusiness Weekly
All around the world, conversations surrounding the political influence of major athletes have shifted seismically in the wake of the past few months’ political events. Now, a campaign by the young footballer has prompted a huge U-Turn from the British government, proving that athlete activists now have more power than ever.
In 2020, it seems weird to think that just a couple of years ago, superstar athletes like LeBron James were, upon expressing any modicum of political opinion that drew attention away from their athletic feats, were being told to quite literally “shut up and dribble.”
The ever-evolving relationship between athletes, their fans, and the political sphere has been a subject of debate pretty much ever since the concept of the celebrity athlete became a thing. The long-held idiom, still touted largely by those who tend to disagree with what said athletes are saying, is that external politics have no place in sport whatsoever.
But whether you think this is true or not, the growing social influence and financial power of certain athletes, along with long-overdue conversations surrounding the public and racial perception of elite sportspeople, to state that sports is no longer political is simply an untenable position to hold. Sport, by its very nature, is political, and will remain so as long as athletes make big money and pay big taxes like everyone else.
Even so, the fight for real social influence has been a struggle for even the most political, and prominent, athletes around the world for decades. In the US, athletes all the way from Muhammad Ali to Colin Kaepernick, who largely spread messages of peace and racial justice, were ostracised for doing so. In the UK, black footballers have been campaigning against their grossly unfair portrayals in the media compared to their white counterparts. Even in Australia, Adam Goodes, the first indigenous player to speak out publicly against the culture of racism that plagued the AFL, was made a pariah for doing so.
However, the tide seems to have rapidly shifted. In the wake of the George Floyd protests, the sporting world has come together in almost total solidarity to support calls against racial injustice, however, it may manifest around the world. Largely due to overwhelming pressure from its own player base, the NFL has been largely forced into retracting its initial position surrounding the treatment of Colin Kaepernick.
F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton has been vocal in his calls for institutional change. Nascar, a popular sport in America’s conservative south, banned the use of confederate flags at its events.
And last weekend, as Australia’s own AFL got underway, the players emerged onto an empty MCG playing surface in Black Lives Matter T-shirts, a powerful gesture indicating just how far the movement had spread. When the Premier League resumes this week, the players will take to the field with the same message printed on the backs of their shirts in place of their names.
Despite the fact that it’s now become more publicly acceptable for players to express their own political opinion, it’s long been the norm for their influence to end there. — Online.
