NBA, WNBA players and teams look to get the vote in a bitterly divided country

On By Littum

Four years ago, the 2020 U.S. election came amid the COVID-19 epidemic and on the heels of several acts of police violence against black people — the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky., and the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wis. – was a focal point for the world.

Although the NBA and its players were in a bubble in Orlando, they were not immune to the events of the world outside that bubble. That year, worldwide protests crystallized people’s demands for change and justice. NBA and WNBA players led protests in their cities, and the Milwaukee Bucks and Orlando Magic started a sports-wide hiatus in August, refusing to play in a playoff game.

The stakes are just as high for this year’s election, which is a week away.

The January 6, 2021 uprising aimed at stopping the official certification of the 2020 election, the 2022 US Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs case, overturning 50 years of settled law regarding abortion rights given in Roe v. Wade, President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the race, combined with the elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris to the top of the Democratic ticket, separate assassination attempts this summer on former President Donald Trump and Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric on immigration and other issues have created a political frenzy, as election day approaches.

But few of the issues the NBA and WNBA pushed in 2020 have moved significantly nationally in the past four years, including codifying greater voting access and limiting voter suppression efforts, along with efforts to curb police violence. The NBA’s Social Justice Coalition, a group of players, team governors, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum, has focused on state-level legislation in the areas of criminal justice, voting rights, policing and community safety.

This cycle continues teams and players in both leagues to engage communities in team cities to get people registered to vote.

Among the most high-profile efforts is being led by WNBA star Nneka Ogwumike, the president of the players association, who was selected in August to take over More Than a Vote, the advocacy group led by LeBron James during the 2020 cycle. The group then sought to protect voting access for black voters by recruiting 40,000 poll workers nationwide and partnering with teams in NBA cities to make arenas available for early voting and to serve as polling locations.

This cycle, More Than a Vote, will focus on women’s issues, including reproductive rights, which are on the ballot in several states nationwide. Ogwumike uses social influencers, social media, including a WhatsApp channeland other methods of finding voters where they are in this cycle.

“The best way to reach them is through them following people that they love in sports,” Ogwumike said last week by phone.

“That is what we know best. Using our platforms to ensure that those who are fans of us can also work to be leaders in their own communities. Because we learn too. There is this perception that those you look up to, or the seemingly untouchable figures in society in culture, have it all going on. We learn a lot through the process. To be able to do that with people following us is really important.”

Ogwumike said More Than a Vote can “kind of be agnostic” about telling people who to vote for while pushing them on how to register in their individual states and how to go out and vote.

“Obviously there’s an emphasis on reproductive freedoms with the help of other female athletes, people I’ve played with and against in the WNBA,” she said. “I think it’s a question that is centralized in the language of how we communicate in society.”

As part of its outreach, More Than a Vote has reached out to potential voters on Native American reservations, engaged with HBCUs and hosted block parties.

“I think it’s the best way to meet people where they are,” Ogwumike said. “I think when you think about, not just the nature of an election cycle, but everything that comes with it. Everybody gets spammed out the wazoo. It’s so overwhelming. …

“But honestly, at this point it’s (about) what information, whatever motivation, support or empowerment that people need. If that means understanding early registration, if that means early voting, if that means election day navigation , I think we’re using as much bandwidth as we can.”

Ogwumike plans to return to his home state of Texas on Election Day to serve as a poll worker in Harris County, one of the largest polling places in the state.

“There’s a big presidential election coming up, but the real change and the really impactful change is the turnout and the results in your community,” she said. “With the 10 states that have (reproductive rights issues) on the ballot, we’re not limiting our outreach to just those states.

“But we’re putting our emphasis on the battleground states right now and engaging people in a way that doesn’t feel as intimidating, that doesn’t feel as political.”

NBA players are also trying to match their effort from four years ago, when 96 percent of their eligible membership was registered to vote in the 2020 election.

The League and the Union created a portal that allowed players to check their voter registration status this summer, get registered and request absentee ballots. Incoming players on the Rookie Transition Program were also able to determine if they had particular issues they wanted to engage with in their team’s cities.

Earlier this month, the Detroit Pistons organized “Pistonsland: What Up DOE,” a nonpartisan day festival in partnership with Rock the Vote and Detroit Votes, to encourage early voting in Michigan, one of the key battleground states in the presidential election. Grammy Award-winning artist Lil Baby provided musical performances at the block party, which also featured food trucks and sought to encourage Gen Z voters to cast their ballots early.

“For the Pistons to be part of the community but also motivate people to participate in the voting process, I think it’s great,” Detroit coach JB Bickerstaff said last week. “It’s one of those things we all have to be a part of. None of us are perfect at it, but by understanding the meaning of it, what it means to cast a vote, what the people before us had to do in order for us to have the right to vote, and making sure we don’t the. waste the chance.”

Bickerstaff, Pistons vice president Arn Tellem and team president of business operations Melanie Harris will visit select polling locations on Election Day to drop off coffee and donuts to poll workers.

In his first season in Detroit, coaching a team coming off a 14-win season that included an NBA-record 28-game losing streak, Bickerstaff already has a lot on his plate. But he is concerned – as so many are – about the fierce division in American politics.

“As a coach, teacher, leader, one of the things I take pride in is bringing people together,” he said. “We don’t always have to agree, but we can civilly disagree. Now it’s team one or the other and I just don’t like you. It’s like a rivalry that has become personal.”

The NBA Coaches Association filmed a public service announcement titled “What is your problem?,” with several head coaches detailing their reasons for voting in the upcoming election. Timberwolves coach Chris Finch and Bucks coach Doc Rivers cited reproductive rights. Warriors coach Steve Kerr cited gun violence. Magic coach Jamahl Mosley cited voter access.

In 2020, with arenas otherwise out of use due to the pandemic, 23 of the NBA’s 30 teams made either their NBA, G League, or team practice facilities available to their communities, either as early voting locations, drop-off locations, or as a vote center on Election Day. (As will be the case this year, no NBA games were played on Election Day in 2020.) A total of 48 professional basketball arenas, football stadiums, hockey arenas and baseball stadiums were used as voting centers, according to the Sports Business Journal. And a poll conducted in 2022 by The Washington Post and the University of Maryland found that 77 percent of respondents favored using sports stadiums as voting locations.

But the easing of nationwide coronavirus restrictions and the reopening of American public life means more people can once again vote in person. So the need to use arenas has decreased.

This year, only eight teams are expected to use their buildings as polling locations or to serve as polling centers — Cleveland, Detroit, Clippers, Phoenix, Portland, Golden State, Milwaukee and Sacramento.

The NBA’s union, the National Basketball Players Association, collaborated with TUNL, a media platform named after “tunnel fits” of players entering arenas with the latest fashions that have become a staple of both NBA and WNBA pregames, to help platform a capsule collection called “But did you vote?,” created by fashion designer Desiree Nicole. Warriors’ Kevon Looney, Denver’s Peyton Watson, Lakers Jarred Vanderbilt and recent Wolves forward Keita Bates-Diop helped Nicole formulate the collection.

Most NBA and WNBA players and coaches who have publicly indicated their preferences in the presidential election favor Harris over Trump. Stephen Curry, Magic Johnson, South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, Chris Paul, two-time WNBA MVP and three-time champion Candace Parker, Kerr and Rivers, that told a Harris adis among those formally endorsing Harris. So did the Seattle Storm organization.

Hall of Fame coach George Karl helped organize Hoops For Harris, an online support group that followed the rally and fundraising efforts by other groups like Win With Black Women, which started the Zoom craze for Harris after she announced her candidacy in July . Hoops for Harris raised $25,000 for the Harris campaign on their Zoom call in September, which featured Knicks and Liberty superfan Spike Lee, Lakers assistant coach Lindsey Harding and Mavericks Minority Governor Mark Cuban, who has become a Harris surrogate on the campaign trail.

Miriam Adelson, whose family bought a controlling interest in the Mavericks from Cuban earlier this year, is a staunch supporter of Trump. She poured $100 million into a pro-Trump political action committee, according to The New York Times, and was a major donor to Republican candidates and causes during the 2020 cycle.

Knicks Governor Jim Dolan gave $300,000 in 2020 to a committee associated with the former presidentas well as the maximum personal amount allowed, $2,700. And Trump held one of his last major rallies before Election Day on Sunday at Madison Square Gardenwhere Dolan’s Knicks and Rangers play. The rally included speeches with racist language about both Puerto Ricans and black people.

Ogwumike knows the reality of the current political landscape in the United States. But she remains optimistic that the country is not as biased as it seems.

“We live in an age where there is a lot of excess from the rhetoric of division,” Ogwumike said. “I really think it’s an illusion compared to looking at everybody as a whole, in my experience both as an athlete, in a league that’s growing, and also as a citizen of this country.”

(Photo of Doc Rivers, CJ McCollum, Nneka Ogwumike: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)