SMW Top 20 of the 2010s: #1

In a decade when a SportsCenter anchor was denounced from the White House press room and an NFL quarterback received what amounts to a lifetime ban for protesting, it goes without saying that sports and politics were as intertwined in the 2010s as at any point since the 1970s. It was a decade that lay waste to the idea of sports as the ‘toy department.’ Far from a diversion from the issues, sport is as tied up in those issues as any other cultural form.

The industry reacted to this development largely by sticking its fingers in its ears, hunkering down, and waiting for things to blow over.

ESPN in particular has gone out of its way to avoid even the slightest taint of politics, burned as it was by a reputation as too liberal in the late years of the decade. Whether due to President Obama giving NCAA Tournament picks every year, Hank Williams Jr. being fired from Monday Night Football for comparing Obama to Hitler or Caitlyn Jenner winning an ESPY, ESPN built up a considerable backlash among some on the right wing even before Jemele Hill’s previously chronicled tweet.

Much as the NFL’s ratings ills were blamed on Kaepernick’s protests, every story about ESPN’s viewership or distribution became a referendum on the company’s perceived political slant. The fact that ESPN’s shows were hardly political — including Hill and Michael Smith’s SC6 — was beside the point.

How do you solve a problem based more in perception than reality? ESPN under Jimmy Pitaro’s year-old administration has decided on the dual strategy of paying people to go away and pretending things have changed. Buyouts to Hill, Smith and Michelle Beadle got rid of ESPN’s three biggest lightning rods. Meanwhile, Pitaro has eagerly talked up ESPN’s politics policy, which forces employees to avoid discussing issues deemed political unless they relate directly to sports — aka the status quo. In the first test of ESPN’s policy last summer — Dan Le Batard condemning the president on-air for telling four Congresswomen to “go back” to their countries — ESPN did little more than reassert that the policy exists.

ESPN’s strategy mimics that of the NFL with Kaepernick. Banish the sinner(s), make a big show out of changing rules and policies, do nothing, and then just hope everyone stops paying attention. That it has worked so far is less the result of some great PR savvy and more of luck. Nobody has pushed the issue far enough for the league or the network to have to act.

The do-nothing strategy has its limits, as the NBA saw this past fall. After Rockets GM Daryl Morey tweeted support for Hong Kong protesters, the Chinese government canceled NBA broadcasts from its state-owned media outlets. Faced with an over-the-top Chinese backlash and a domestic audience eager to highlight the league’s hypocrisy, the response around the NBA was carefully worded silence.

Yet sticking to sports proved inadequate. The league’s attempts to keep the peace were largely condemned as cowardice, including by the crowd that usually wants athletes to shut up and dribble. It turns out that trying to satisfy all of your potential customers rather than speaking out on issues that might alienate some of them is not the foolproof PR strategy some think. Silence is its own statement, and you can alienate some in trying to appease others.

‘Stick to sports’ has become as common a refrain as any in the sports media, and toward the end of the decade has become the official strategy of some of the most powerful entities in the industry. Its efficacy has thus far not been truly tested, but that will change soon.

Anyone hoping for sports to return to the toy department is sure to be disappointed in the coming years. The developments of this decade will not conveniently end when the clock strikes Midnight. 2020 is after all an election year.