With their boycott of games earlier this week to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, athletes in the National Basketball Association …
With their boycott of games earlier this week to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, athletes in the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball have crossed a bridge that they may find difficult to return from. Though professional athletes have become increasingly politicized since former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began his “Star Spangled Banner” protests in 2016, the widespread cancellation of games, including NBA playoff contests, is unprecedented. The walkout in support of Blake, who was wanted on a sexual-assault charge and whose own girlfriend called the cops on him, hardly represents the kind of compelling case against police brutality one might build a mass movement around. If players, in the midst of a pandemic slowdown already costing professional sports billions of dollars, were willing to shut down their industry in this instance, how frequently will they feel compelled, or even pressured, to do the same in the future? Fans who were already watching less sports may react negatively to being lectured by wealthy athletes who regularly walk off the job. The shooting of Blake, who remains hospitalized and in custody in Wisconsin, sparked several days of rioting and protests in Kenosha beginning last Sunday night. Cancellation of games began with the Milwaukee Bucks refusing to take the court against the Orlando Magic and then spread to other teams, prompting the NBA to call off all playoff games scheduled for Wednesday. Players for the Milwaukee Brewers decided to join the protests by refusing to take the field against the Cincinnati Reds that same night, and several other baseball teams joined them. Some players and sympathetic commentators thought this signaled a defining change in sports. A New York Times columnist wrote that, “Next time, the stoppage may well last longer than a few days. Maybe players will sit out an entire season.
