The New York Times is trying to emphasize that this year in sports was all about social justice activism. But there is another important fact that can’t be separated from the political push: There were no fans.
The first New York Times piece is a recap of the year in sports, which claims that “this was the year of the bubble and of players forcefully demanding racial justice.” The piece runs through the list of pointless symbolic stands that athletes took, from soccer players putting “Black Lives Matter” on their jerseys to NBA players putting “Black Lives Matter” on their jerseys.
The second is an essay by Harvey Araton titled “A Year When Even Sports Wasn’t an Escape.” Araton similarly praises the mostly useless symbolic stands of athletes, hilariously claiming that the most risky was the notably left-wing WNBA campaigning against Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler in Georgia.
The two pieces ignore the biggest problem with this year of activism, which is what effect, if any, it had on fans. After all, fans were banned from most games this season, and television ratings are down for sports across the board, thanks in part to the odd scheduling in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
But activism also played a role here. NBA ratings had already tanked in 2019 before the pandemic thanks to the political hypocrisy of players, and the effect was likely felt by the NFL, MLB, and NHL as they pandered to the activist class. When fans were allowed at games, they booed soccer players for protesting during the national anthem. Even the NFL’s opening night saw Kansas City Chiefs fans, in their first game since winning the Super Bowl, boo a faux show of unity.
It turns out that sports fans just want to watch sports without being lectured by millionaire athletes about how they are the problem. It turns out that people did, in fact, want an escape from the whole global pandemic that threw millions of people into unemployment and confined them to their homes for nine months (and counting).
While coaches, players, and their media allies all continue to push social justice politics in lockstep, fans have tuned them out. Their protests and sloganeering have predictably done nothing to solve the problems they allege have plagued the country. As the media continues to fawn over the bravery it takes to repeat corporate-approved talking points, no one at home is listening.
