NBA Commissioner Adam Silver says the league no longer has any team “owners.” Instead, it will refer to owners as “governor” or “alternate governor” for a part-owner.
Some players, including Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors, claim the term is racially insensitive because of slavery. The majority of team owners are white, and the majority of NBA players are black (about 74%). Therefore, the term must be racist.
In 2017, Green argued, “Very rarely do we take the time to rethink something and say, ‘Maybe that’s not the way.’ Just because someone was taught that 100 years ago doesn’t make that the right thing today. And so, when you look at the word ‘owner,’ it really dates back to slavery. The word ‘owner,’ ‘master’ — it dates back to slavery. … we just took the words and we continued to put it to use.”
The whole thing is ridiculous. Calling NBA team owners what they are is not racist.
Throughout the NBA’s more than 70-year history, this was never brought up as a problem until the past few years when political correctness has run amok. Owners have put up large amounts of money to fund the organization in hopes of turning a profit. They own the team the same way one could own a restaurant, a bookstore, or a nail salon. Yet no one calls restaurant owners racist if they call themselves “owner” and have a large number of racial minorities as employees.
To argue the term “owner” is insensitive because of slavery is insensitive to the country’s ugly history. Slaves were forced to perform hard labor, received no compensation, and were treated horribly. Slaves were whipped and beaten senselessly, raped, and many of them died on the voyage to the United States.
Meanwhile, NBA players are some of the wealthiest people in the country. The average player receives $6.4 million per season plus compensation from public appearances and endorsement deals. The teams travel on private jets and the players receive time off during the summer months. Players freely enter into contracts with NBA teams (with mostly reasonable rules and conditions).
Certainly, the conditions an NBA player endures are not even remotely comparable to slavery.
Race and racism also are not relevant here since Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League are both majority white leagues which use the phrase “owner.” When the NBA was established in 1946, it was an all-white league, which had owners.
Not signing minority players when the NBA began was truly racist. An accurate term to describe someone who owns a sports team is not.
Americans have far more to be concerned about than phony outrage and virtue signals from a multibillion dollar sports league. If anyone should be outraged at the NBA over anything, it should be the taxpayer money they receive to build arenas for multimillionaire governors owners.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a freelance writer who has been published with USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Federalist, and a number of other media outlets.
