BSM Writers
Nothing Else Matters: In 2020, Sports Crushed Racism
“What was thought to be a lost year in American sports has transformed into a sweeping revolution — the shakedown of racial inequality — that trivializes the now-tenuous resumption of games.”
This will sound strangely counterintuitive without games to watch, trophies to award and over-unders to wager, but sports already has won the year. The ref can stop the fight, in fact, because racism is getting its ass kicked. If the apocalyptic haze of 2020 couldn’t have been foreseen even with 20-20 vision, sports still has conquered all with its extraordinary embrace of a movement — Black Lives Matter — that never has mattered much beyond lip service and business necessity in an industry lorded by white billionaires.
Suddenly, shockingly, nothing else matters. Nor should it when this country, suffering from a collective guilty conscience, is awash in soul searching that should have happened centuries ago.
“Ask the questions, ask the uncomfortable questions, and you will come to the conclusion, I hope, that I have,’’ said Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti, one such white billionaire. “You don’t feel it enough and you don’t live it enough if you’re not willing to say it: Black lives matter.’’
The raw significance: Bisciotti considered signing Colin Kaepernick in 2017 and declined, concerned that segments of his team’s fan base would rebel. Now, he says he’d be “the worst kind of hypocrite’’ if he didn’t speak out about race. Did you just feel the earth move? We’re still waiting for Jerry Jones and other prominent NFL owners to stand up and say something, anything, but if they don’t, they’ll now be perceived as bigots who ignored the social justice crusade. That’s how three weeks have changed America, hopefully forever.
Progress? No, this is a cultural avalanche — a reckoning, I reckon, that reduces everything else in sports to gravel dust.
Let Major League Baseball implode in greed and delusion, its shrunken manhood naked to a mocking world. The owners and players continue to insult the national intellect, if not commit institutional suicide, by flailing like two punchdrunk bums and failing to reach common ground to resume the season. At this point, we’d be happy if they fade away like floppy disks, Hummers, David Lee Roth and other ‘90s bygones. Shame on the owners for crying poor after generating $10 billion in revenues last season, then refusing comment after cutting a $3.3 billion TV deal with Turner Sports, which either likes wasting money or had Charles Barkley brokering the talks in a bar. And shame on the players for not immediately going on strike, having heard St. Louis Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt Jr. say, “The industry isn’t very profitable, to be honest.’’
Tweeted pitching smart-ass Trevor Bauer: “Oh good so … we can play now, right? Seems there is plenty to go around here. Seems there is plenty of money being made by the league and the teams. Given tha(t) players are the product, I’m sure some of this can be distributed to them, right? Yay for baseball.”
A commissioner-mandated, 48-game season would be a bastardized farce amid racial unrest and a pandemic, typical of a sham sport where the Yankees have joined the Astros and Red Sox in the electronic sign-stealing sinbin. Is anyone to be trusted in this godforsaken racket? Why would any established, wealthy-for-life star agree to play and take health risks — MLB has yet to establish an official COVID-19 testing protocol — when a better idea is to stay home until next year. And If Mike Trout and other superstars don’t suit up, what is the point of playing an illegitimate season? Just declare a work stoppage and leave us alone. If you miss baseball, you must be 85, playing John Fogerty’s “Centerfield’’ on cassette and still calling it the national pastime. Which makes you Bud Selig, who somehow wrecked the game AND made the Hall of Fame while still believing Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa were heroes.
Let a coronavirus bubble chase off some NBA players and confound others, such as Kyrie Irving, who think resuming a season would diminish Black Lives Matter momentum and overshadow protests when, of course, it also would draw attention to the league’s social conscience. As Austin Rivers said, echoing LeBron James and those who do want to play in the Disney World biodome: “Us coming back would put money in all of our pockets. With this money, you could help out even more people and continue to give, more importantly, your time and energy toward the BLM movement.’’ The league boss, Adam Silver, should have known some would balk at virus risks in Florida, where infections are surging in the Orlando area, and lockdown rules that won’t let players leave the bubble for restaurants, golf courses or strip clubs. But when Irving, who isn’t healthy enough to play, suggests the league is racist for trying to resume a season, that’s an outgrowth of the bigger cause.
“I don’t support going into Orlando. I’m not with the systematic racism and the bullshit,’’ Irving said on a conference call with fellow players, per The Athletic. “Smells a little fishy. Whether we want to admit it or not, we are targeted as black men every day we wake up.’’
Let the football season never start because a line of scrimmage is a petri dish for the coronavirus. Let the inevitable positive tests thwart preposterous attempts to resume seasons and recoup lost fortunes. Let the concept of spectator-free events turn freaky in golf, where a hole-in-one happened without applause and a CBS boom mike picked up Jon Rahm’s F-bomb. Let there be no titles, no MVPs, no parades.
Who really cares when we’ve seen sports finally examine itself in the looking glass, see a self-image it has grown to despise and realize it too has failed massively — even after Jackie Robinson, even after John Carlos and Tommie Smith, even after Muhammad Ali — in a twisted culture that allows a white Minneapolis policeman to knee-choke-murder an unarmed black man two decades into the 21st century. It took those eight minutes and 46 seconds, the killing of George Floyd, for the athletic world to at last acknowledge what so many resident activists have said for eons about racial injustice and police brutality in America.
The hatred must end.
The world must change.
And so it has, with sports figures of all races and ages joining America in a swirl of protests, statements and pro-inclusion advocacy, to the point sports might play a prominent role in a substitution a bit larger than Tom Brady for Drew Bledsoe and Lou Gehrig for Wally Pipp — say, Joe Biden for Donald Trump. The country’s abrupt revolution, inspired by the pulsating protests after Floyd’s death, has jolted sports leaders who have no choice but to speak out and change policies … or risk being linked to complicity in racism. For the first time, the politically connected magnates of sports — why does Jones’ grin always pop up first? — appear helpless in stopping the Kaepernick-led peaceful kneeling protests that surfaced in 2016 but faded two years later. That’s because seemingly everyone in sports — commissioners, executives, coaches, athletes — is committed to Black Lives Matter. If only sports would have acted so responsibly when health experts, in early March, were advising shutdowns of arenas and ballparks because of a novel virus.
COVID-19 kills people. But racism, in a progressive America, might kill entire leagues. That’s what grabs the establishment’s attention. We’ve seen the NFL, which normally genuflects to no one, dramatically change course and urge players to protest. We’ve seen NASCAR, reluctant through time to break from racist roots, ban the confederate flag — lower-case c, please — after its only full-time black driver, Bubba Wallace, said, “It starts with confederate flags. Get them out of here.’’ The Boston Red Sox decried cases, including seven last year, in which racist fans poisoned the Fenway Park experience. During MLB’s amateur draft, the predominantly white heads of franchise front offices displayed placards: “Black Lives Matter. United for Change.’’ The U.S. Olympic Committee, known to punish athletes for protests during medals ceremonies, is forming an athletes-led panel to “challenge the rules and systems in our own organization that create barriers to progress, including your right to protest.’’ Collegiate sports factories such as Clemson, Iowa and Texas have been reminded we’re in a new millennium. So has the U.S. Soccer Federation, which will let players protest after requiring Megan Rapinoe to stand when she was kneeling in solidarity.
Tweeted Trump: “I’d rather the US not have a soccer team than have a soccer team that won’t stand for the National Anthem. I won’t be watching much anymore.’’
And Drew Brees? Anyone heard from him lately? His dated views about anthem protests have been modernized by a younger white quarterback, Tennessee’s Ryan Tannehill, who said, “When the kneeling first started to happen, it was a bit of a shock, I guess, because it hadn’t been done before. I think I had to get past the fact that it wasn’t about the flag. It wasn’t about the anthem. It wasn’t about our country. It was about the injustice and raising awareness and getting people’s attention. I think once I got past that fact, I could really support it.”
Another white quarterback, Baker Mayfield, scolded a fan who wrote on Instagram, “Please tell Browns fans you’re not going to be kneeling this season.’’ Replied Mayfield, not always the most savvy bro-dude: “(P)ull your head out. I absolutely am.’’
Racists always will lurk. But in sports, they’ve climbed into the closet and turned out the light, drowned out by legitimate hope in numbers. We expect James, a tenured veteran of social activism, to be front and center. “Because of everything that’s going on, people are finally starting to listen to us — we feel like we’re finally getting a foot in the door,’’ he said. “How long is up to us. We don’t know. We do feel like we’re getting some ears and attention, and this is the time for us to finally make a difference.” But why does 2020 feel like a landmark and not another half-hearted charade of opportunism? Through technology, billions of eyeballs have seen Floyd, unable to breathe, a visual that makes us tremble and cry while shining a light on police brutality that cannot be minimized by the coldest of hearts.
“In the time since I’ve been alive, I don’t remember it being this strong of an impact and reaching this many people and this many people being upset and emotional about it,’’ said the vocal NFL social observer, Richard Sherman. “The way the world has been, when those guys (Kaepernick and other kneelers) were making it about police brutality, (skeptics) found a way to dull down that message and divert it and make it about something else, as a way to avoid the conversation. I think this time, it’s too full-fledged. Most people are actually getting the messaging and seeing it first-hand. Any human with any true empathy in them for their fellow human being would feel that strong. Nobody can turn their eyes away.’’
From George Floyd. From Ahmaud Arbery. From Breonna Taylor. And, this past weekend, from Rayshard Brooks, who was fatally shot by police in a struggle over a Taser outside an Atlanta fast-food restaurant.
Also consider that Black Lives Matter has an unexpected wild card: Patrick Mahomes, face of the most prominent league in American sports, who has emerged from the Gen Z shadows to condemn systemic racism and stir the waters of social change. Best known for his otherworldly quarterbacking skills and beach photos with his girlfriend, Mahomes was the biggest star in the epic players’ video that forced NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to admit the league was “wrong’’ and immediately change policy on activism, now encouraging players to “speak out and peacefully protest.’’ Mahomes represents young people in their mid-20s — a voting demographic that potentially could reshape the White House.
“Enough is enough,” Mahomes said. “ We’ve got to do something about this. I’m blessed to have this platform. Why not use it? We (need) to come together as players and show that we believe black lives matter. We need to be the role models to go out there and take that step.’’
It’s working. In 2016, when anthem displays were most demonstrative, polls showed that only 25-30 percent of Americans appoved of kneeling. Today, a Yahoo News/YouGuv poll of 1,564 Americans has 52 percent indicating approval for “NFL players to kneel during the national anthem to protest police killings of African-Americans.’’ This time, Goodell and Jones cannot curtail the sideline protests if TV ratings are adversely impacted and advertisers are concerned. Kneeling will proceed en masse, likely involving every team and every game until further notice, despite indications by some franchises that protest decisions will be made as organizations. Once Goodell said in his video, “I personally protest with you,’’ it will be hard to walk back from his declaration without creating chaos. Among those suspicious of Goodell’s motives is the noted anti-Trumper, Gregg Popovich, who told the New York Times: “He got intimidated when Trump jumped on the kneeling (and) he folded.’’ This time, Goodell will stay true.
It’s Jones who might be foolish enough to resist as the bad cop. Three years ago, remember, he said any Dallas Cowboys player who “disrespects the flag’’ wouldn’t play. Sherman is among those asking why Jones has been silent recently. “Jerry Jones, especially, has no problem speaking up any other time about anything else,” he said. “But when it’s such a serious issue, and he could really make a huge impact on it with a few words, his silence speaks volumes.”
They may be white, male and privileged, but most of the owners aren’t stupid. They saw the protests, filled with young people who will decide if the NFL and other sports leagues are relevant in the future. They saw how the statue of Jerry Richardson, once revered in Charlotte for bringing the Panthers to town, was carted away from the stadium to an undisclosed storage facility, two years after racial and sexual misconduct allegations forced him to sell the team. No doubt they’ve been weakened, as well, by an ongoing health catastrophe that has left them vulnerable.
So they are opening the doors they’ve kept shut. And more are speaking out, regardless of harsh consequences during cocktail hour at the owners’ meetings. The more they speak out, the more confident Black America becomes that this is not the usual lip service. “Back when Kaepernick took a knee, it was almost kind of scary,” Los Angeles Rams receiver Robert Woods said. “You could lose your job, you could be on the bench. I think now being able to have a voice, knowing that your political views shouldn’t (be punishable) … I think you’ll see players speak up on what they believe in and have confidence that their team is able to back them.”
Said Minnesota Vikings linebacker Eric Kendricks: “Finally having Goodell say those things and having our back, I feel like we can all move forward now.”
Hell, at least one white NFL coach says he’ll kneel with his players. “Yeah, I’ll take a knee — I’m all for it,’’ said Bill O’Brien, who represents the Texans in Houston, George Floyd’s hometown. “The players have a right to protest, a right to be heard and a right to be who they are. They’re not taking a knee because they’re against our flag. They’re taking a knee because they haven’t been treated equally in this country for over 400 years.’’
Face it. Sports needed a comprehensive deep cleanse, a massive reboot, a push of the reset button. I’ve been saying and writing since March 11, the night Rudy Gobert’s positive test halted the NBA, that the industry should shut down until 2021 to reassess its place in a new world. Now, I believe it even more.
It might be too much to rid the industry of cheating and avarice, but sports must try. We’ve seen the unshakeable monster, racial inequality, sacked and smothered into the earth. Finally, anything seems possible.
Jay Mariotti, called “the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes a weekly media column for Barrett Sports Media and regular sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts in production today. He’s an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and radio talk host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects. Compensation for this column is donated to the Chicago Sun-Times Charity Trust.
BSM Writers
Is There Still a Place for Baseball Talk on National Sports Shows?
“Its struggle has been the same since the beginning of television. There is too much baseball for any regular season baseball game or story to have national significance.”
Demetri Ravanos is the Assistant Content Director for Barrett Sports Media. He hosts the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas. Previous stops include WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC. You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos and reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
BSM Writers
Who Can Sports Fans Trust Once Twitter Ditches Legacy Verified Blue Checks?
The potential for Twitter chaos after April 1 is looming.
As of April 1, Twitter will finally make a dreaded change that many will view as an April Fools’ prank. Unfortunately, it won’t be a joke to any user who cares about legitimacy and truth.
Last week, Twitter officially announced that verified blue checkmarks will be removed from accounts that have not signed up for a Twitter Blue subscription. Previously, accounts whose identity had been verified were allowed to keep their blue checks when Twitter Blue was implemented.
But shortly after Elon Musk purchased Twitter and became the social media company’s CEO, he stated his intention to use verification as a revenue source. Users would have to pay $8 per month (or $84 annually) for a Twitter Blue subscription and blue checkmark verification. Paying for blue checks immediately set off red flags among users who learned to depend on verified accounts for accredited identities and trusted information.
The entire concept of verification and blue checks was simple and effective. Users and accounts bearing the blue checkmark were legitimate. These people and organizations were who they said they were.
As an example, ESPN’s Adam Schefter has faced criticism for how he framed domestic violence and sexual misconduct involving star NFL players, and deservedly so. But fans and media know Schefter’s tweets are really coming from him because his account is verified.
Furthermore, Twitter took the additional step of clarifying that accounts such as Schefter’s were verified before Twitter Blue was implemented. He didn’t pay eight dollars for that blue checkmark.
The need for verification is never more vital than when fake accounts are created to deceive users. Such accounts will put “Adam Schefter” as their Twitter name, even if their handle is something like “@TuaNeedsHelp.” Or worse, some fake accounts will create a handle with letters that look similar. So “@AdarnSchefter” with an “rn” in place of the “m,” fools some people, especially at a quick glance when people are trying to push news out as fast as possible.
Plenty of baseball fans have been duped over the years by fake accounts using a zero instead of an “o” or a capital “I” instead of a lowercase “l” to resemble Fox Sports and The Athletic reporter Ken Rosenthal. That trick didn’t get me. But when I covered Major League Baseball for Bleacher Report 10 years ago, I did fall for a fake Jim Salisbury account that reported the Philadelphia Phillies traded Hunter Pence to the San Francisco Giants. Capital “I,” not lowercase “l” in “Salisbury.” Pence was, in fact, traded to the Giants two days later, but that didn’t make my goof any less embarrassing. I should’ve looked for the blue checkmark!
But after April 1, that signifier won’t matter. Legacy blue checkmarks will be removed from accounts that haven’t paid for Twitter Blue. Some accounts that were previously verified might purchase a subscription to maintain that blue check. But those that were deemed legitimate prior to Musk taking over Twitter likely won’t. (There are also rumors that Twitter is considering a feature that would allow Twitter Blue subscribers to hide their blue check and avoid revealing that purchase.)
That could be even more true for media organizations, which are being told to pay $1000 per month for verification. Do you think ESPN, the New York Times, or the Washington Post will pay $12,000 for a blue check?
We’ve already seen the problems that paying for verification can cause. Shortly after Twitter Blue launched, accounts pretending to be legacy verified users could be created. A fake Adam Schefter account tweeted that the Las Vegas Raiders had fired head coach Josh McDaniels. Users who saw the “Adam Schefter” Twitter name went with the news without looking more closely at the “@AdamSchefterNOT” handle. But there was a blue checkmark next to the name this time!
The same thing occurred with a fake LeBron James account tweeting that the NBA superstar had requested a trade from the Los Angeles Lakers. There was a “@KINGJamez” handle, but a “LeBron James” Twitter name with a blue check next to it.
Whether it’s because fans and media have become more discerning or Twitter has done good work cracking down on such fake accounts, there haven’t been many outrageous examples of deliberate deception since last November. But the potential for Twitter chaos after April 1 is looming.
If that seems like an overstatement, it’s a very real possibility that there will be an erosion of trust among Twitter users. Media and fans may have to take a breath before quickly tweeting and retweeting news from accounts that may or may not be credible. False news and phony statements could spread quickly and go viral across social media.
Even worse, Musk has announced that only verified Twitter Blue accounts will be seen in your “For You” timeline as of April 15. (He can’t claim it’s an April Fools’ Day joke on that date.)
Obviously, that carries far more serious real-world implications beyond sports. Forget about a fake Shams Charania account tweeting that Luka Dončić wants to be traded to the Lakers. It’s not difficult to imagine a fake Joe Biden account declaring war on Russia and some people believing it’s true because of the blue checkmark.
We may be nearing the end of Twitter being a reliable news-gathering tool. If the accounts tweeting out news can’t be trusted, where’s the value? Reporters and newsmakers may end up going to other social media platforms to break stories and carry the viability of verification.
When Fox Sports’ website infamously pivoted to video in 2017, Ken Rosenthal posted his MLB reporting on Facebook prior to joining The Athletic. Hello, Instagram. Will someone take their following and reputation to a fledgling platform like Mastodon, Post, Spoutible, or BlueSky, even if it means a lesser outlet?
If and when that happens, Twitter could still be a community but not nearly as much fun. Not when it becomes a matter of trust that breaks up the party.
Ian Casselberry is a sports media columnist for BSM. He has previously written and edited for Awful Announcing, The Comeback, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, MLive, Bleacher Report, and SB Nation. You can find him on Twitter @iancass or reach him by email at iancass@gmail.com.
BSM Writers
There’s a Lesson For Us All in Florida Atlantic’s Elite 8 Broadcast Struggle
“It is a ton of faith our industry has been forced to place in a single mode of delivery.”
Ryan Brown is a columnist for Barrett Sports Media, and a co-host of the popular sports audio/video show ‘The Next Round’ formerly known as JOX Roundtable, which previously aired on WJOX in Birmingham. You can find him on Twitter @RyanBrownLive and follow his show @NextRoundLive.