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

Four years ago, the 2020 U.S. elections, coming amidst the COVID-19 epidemic, and on the heels of multiple 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. — were an inflection point for the world.

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

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

The Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, designed to stop the official certification of the 2020 election, the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs case that overturned 50 years of settled law with regard to abortion rights granted 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 inflamed rhetoric on immigration and other issues, have created a political frenzy as Election Day nears.

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

This cycle, teams and players in both leagues are continuing 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’ union, and who was selected in August to take over More Than a Vote, the advocacy group led by LeBron James during the 2020 cycle. Then, the group sought to protect voting access for Black voters, recruiting 40,000 poll workers nationwide and partnering with teams in NBA cities to make arenas available for early voting and to serve as ballot drop locations.

This cycle, More Than a Vote will concentrate on women’s issues, including reproductive rights, that are on the ballot in multiple states nationwide. Ogwumike is using social influencers, social media, including a WhatsApp channel, and other methods to find voters where they are 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’s 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’re also learning, too. There’s this perception that those that you look up to, or those seemingly untouchable figures in society in culture, have everything going on. We learn a lot through the process. Being able to do that with people who follow 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.

“Of course, there is an emphasis on reproductive freedoms with the help of other women athletes, people I’ve played with and against in the WNBA,” she said. “I think that’s an issue that’s centralized in language around how we communicate within the community.”

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

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

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

Ogwumike plans to return to her home state of Texas on Election Day to serve as a poll worker in Harris County, one of the biggest voting locations in the state.

“There is a large presidential election happening, but the real change and the real influential change is voter turnout and results in your local community,” she said. “With those 10 states that have (reproductive rights questions) on the ballot, we’re not limiting our outreach to just those states.

“But we are putting our emphasis on the battleground states right now, engaging folks in a way that doesn’t feel so daunting, that doesn’t feel so political.”

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

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

Earlier this month, the Detroit Pistons organized “Pistonsland: What Up D.O.E.,” a nonpartisan day festival in collaboration 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 headlined musical performances at the block party, which also had food trucks and tried 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 is great,” Detroit coach J.B. Bickerstaff said last week. “It’s one of those things that we all need to be a part of. None of us are perfect in it, but understanding the significance of it, what it means to actually cast a vote, what those people before us had to do in order for us to get the right to vote, and make sure we don’t squander the opportunity.”

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

In his first season in Detroit, coaching a team coming off a 14-win season that included an NBA-record 28 straight losses, Bickerstaff already has a lot on his plate. But he is troubled — as so many are — by the virulent divisiveness 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’s gotten personal.”

The NBA Coaches Association filmed a public service announcement titled “What is Your Issue?,” 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 empty and not in use because of the pandemic, 23 of the NBA’s 30 teams made either their NBA, G League or team practice facilities available for their communities to use, either as early voting sites, drop-off locations or as a voting 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 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 sites.

But the reduction of coronavirus restrictions nationwide and the reopening of U.S. societal life means more people can again vote in person. So the need to use arenas has lessened.

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

The NBA’s union, the National Basketball Players Association, partnered with TUNL, a media platform named for the “tunnel fits” of players walking into 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 Desyree Nicole. The Warriors’ Kevon Looney, Denver’s Peyton Watson, the Lakers Jarred Vanderbilt and recent Wolves forward Keita Bates-Diop, helped Nicole formulate the collection.

Most NBA and WNBA players and coaches who’ve publicly stated 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, who narrated a Harris ad, are among those to formally endorse Harris. The Seattle Storm organization did as well.

Hall of Fame coach George Karl helped organize Hoops For Harris, an online support group that followed the meeting and fundraising efforts of 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 its September Zoom call, which featured Knicks and Liberty super fan 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 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 affiliated with the former president, as 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 Garden, where Dolan’s Knicks and Rangers play. The rally included speeches with racist language about both Puerto Rican and Black people.

Ogwumike knows the reality of the current political landscape in the United States. But she remains optimistic that the country isn’t as partisan as it appears.

“We live in a time where there’s a lot of profit off the rhetoric of division,” Ogwumike said. “I really think that’s an illusion compared to considering everyone as a whole, in my experience both as an athlete, in a league that’s growing, and also as a citizen of this country.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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