In recent years, everyone in the public eye has been under scrutiny for their actions and responses surrounding Black Lives Matter (BLM) and other anti-racist movements. A big impact on the varying levels of willingness to speak up is people’s feelings of safety and security in their workplace. This article will consider two different professional sports leagues with very different levels of diversity and compare how they have created, aided, and protected a safe community for their players and staff. This is a topic that most people have seen in the news and will likely have preconceived notions about how these two institutions might compare.
To start, it is important to consider the different racial demographics and representation of these two institutions. The most recent percentages for the NBA (National Basketball Association) were taken at the beginning of last season and they identified 16.8 percent of the league as white. This is an extreme contrast to the NHL (National Hockey League) which lists ninety three percent of players as white as of this year. This stark difference in representation may help to explain the extremely different approaches to interacting with anti-racist movements.
There are a few different ways to examine the differences in player and team actions across the two leagues. You can look at how specific players protest, how teams pull together to advocate, or how the league as a whole portrays itself. To start we can compare players. One NBA player, Jaylen Brown, drove fifteen hours from Boston to Atlanta to lead and help organize a peaceful protest against police brutality. A star player for the New Orleans’ NBA team, Jrue Holiday donated a portion of his annual league salary to help build a new social fund supporting black-owned businesses in major cities in America. This ended up being around 5.3 million dollars and that was only his first pledge of money. Now I could mention an NHL player who has attended protests or posted something on their social media about BLM, but I don’t think that would tell the whole story. Instead I want to bring attention to Nazem Kadri, a player who is of Lebanese descent. Last year, while helping to lead his team to the Stanley Cup, he received death threats from opposing fans. These threats forced local law enforcement and security to take action, and Kadri is reported as having felt unsafe. The league did not do much to help protect Kadri. In an interview, Kadri’s head coach brushed off the death threats saying “Naz’s focused, he’s a big boy, he’s a tough guy, and he’s a resilient guy”. He does go on to say, “it’s unfortunate he has to deal with it and he knows that we’re all with him”. While the coach did align himself with Kadri, his statement seemed to be downplaying this situation as not a big deal. There is also the tone that this is just something that happens and requires perseverance.
It is also important to look at differences in actions at both the team level and the league level. In the first NBA game after the league returned from the pause for Covid, the two teams playing wore shirts saying Black Lives Matter and coaches wore pins stating the same. All players, staff, coaches, and referees proceeded to kneel during the anthem in a stand against recent racist events. More specifically the players were protesting the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Trayvon Martin, and other horrible results of police brutality.
Given past fan reactions to players kneeling during the national anthem, this act was incredibly powerful, taking courage and commitment to make a collective stance. In the NHL, the majority of players opted not to kneel during the anthems. Those that did went against the commissioner’s and other high ranking officials’ wishes. The non-statement from most players created quite a stir with some fans and lead to a social media trend called #kneel4hockey. Under this hashtag, fans posted pictures of themselves kneeling at home with the intent of showing their support for BLM and disappointment that players in the NHL were not showing similar support or concern.
Finally, there are also differences in how each league as a whole took a stance on anti-racism issues. In the wake of the George Floyd’s murder and other incidents of racism that received national attention, the NBA and NBA players union announced a three hundred million dollar foundation with the goal of fighting racism and investing in black communities across both the US and Canada. Specifically, the money was set aside to create partnerships with historically black colleges and universities and to help enhance career paths for black youths by supporting internships, career placement, and job opportunities. Around this same time, the NHL showed their commitment to diversity through the slogan “hockey is for everyone” with the intent of attracting more diverse players,coaches, and staff to the league. There was also the idea that all current employees of the league would go through an immersive learning experience to educate on unconscious bias and have uncomfortable conversations around race. After two full seasons, many fans and news platforms have noted that not much has changed in terms of the percentage of minority players, staff, or coaches in the NHL. The league has signed on staff who have been openly racist, using slurs, and other racist comments both on social media and in person. For example, a minor team signed the goal-tending coach Dusty Imoo who has liked and followed white supremacist, transphobic, and anti-black accounts on social media platforms.