Noah Shapiro, Pomona College, Media Studies

Change Up: How New Modes of Media Representation Have Empowered the Modern Professional Athlete

Professional athletes in the United States hold more political power today than ever before. Evidenced by the widespread activism within the sporting world in the summer of 2020, athletes are increasingly using their cultural influence to spread political messages. In this essay, I trace the history of athlete activism in the U.S. and the converging set of factors that have empowered today’s stars.

Sports have always been a platform for hegemony: a way for dominant capitalist and racist ideologies to be produced and reinforced in a seemingly isolated social arena. Athletes have long been met with resistance when speaking out on political issues or exploitation within the sports industry itself. Case studies of Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali reveal how athletes struggled to share progressive or subversive political views within a system of corporate media control.

There are two primary factors that have led to the increased influence and agency of professional athletes. Media outlets have built athletes into icons that transcend sports, including them in the growing phenomenon of celebrity involvement in U.S. politics. Additionally, social media has given athletes the ability to better control their own narratives and challenge corporate censorship. Modern case studies of Colin Kaepernick and LeBron James illustrate how athletes are using these factors to their advantage and how public resistance to their efforts reveals deeply entrenched racist ideologies in both sports and the nation at large.

I conclude by analyzing the NBA strike of 2020 as a framework for athletic political action moving forward. By leveraging their vast economic and cultural influence, athletes can continue to drive conversations on social and racial justice within pop culture.