An old joke for longtime Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans went something like this: what do Vinnie Testaverde and Billy Graham have in common? They’re the only two people than can make 75,000 people in Tampa Stadium stand up and yell Jesus Christ. That, of course, referred both to Testaverde’s inclination to throw interceptions and Billy Graham’s magnetic hold over his faithful. It also inferred the near religious attachment of large numbers of sports fans to the ritual of game play, making Sunday as owned by the NFL as it is by the Lord. In other words, for much of America, Sundays in the fall are for football.
Such is the nature of most big-time professional sports, although rarely with the fervor of an NFL schedule, or perhaps college football in the South. But sports command extensive amounts of our somewhat limited time and attention, drawing us away from things that otherwise deserve more attention. Scholars often consider that the addictive nature of sports entertainment and its producers, an opiate for the masses that dulls our awareness of far greater life concerns than whether the Bucs can finally complete a pass to its own team.
It seems the NBA will attempt to change that, or at least some perception thereof. This fall, the league will schedule no basketball games on November 8, or Election Day, in the hopes getting more players and fans to vote. The evening before, every team will play in what the League will call Civic Engagement Night. Such puts the NBA where it typically is in comparison to other top men’s professional leagues in the US – namely, closer to politics.
To be clear, this is a fully non-partisan event, even if the League itself may feel less so. And particularly in what many see as an assault on American voting rights by one political party, having the NBA essentially shut down to get more people to the polls feels oddly ideological, even if this is truly democratic with a small d, as I wish we all were. But the NBA is certainly not telling anyone for whom they should vote. They’re simply stating that they should.
From a purely business perspective, the NBA has little to lose here. Even though it seems they’re going dark for one day, they’ll get all their games in the night before. And from the TV side, there’s not a whole lot of upside to counter programming election results. So this amounts to little more than some schedule and travel reorganization, which might be a huge pain for team staff, but no hit on the bank account. Of course, there will be some ill-conceived backlash, largely from the far right with some narrative about sticking to sports. But that rhetoric makes little to no sense. And honestly, those folks aren’t watching the NBA anyway in-between episodes of Greg Gutfeld. The nice thing about the NBA is they don’t have to be the NFL and earn every American viewer. You don’t want to watch, then more basketball for the rest of us.
Perhaps the more relevant question isn’t the economic one, or even partisanship, but rather, does this work – and is it the right thing to do? I, like I believe most people that are listening, believe strongly in the civic obligation to vote. I think not voting is selfish and spoiled and ignores one of your most vital responsibilities as an American citizen. And I am not speaking of the many Americans whose voting rights have been suppressed or nearly taken away. I’m speaking to the fact that a remarkable percentage of Americans who can and should vote choose not to. And simply removing one entertainment property the night of the election should not make the difference on someone’s choice to exercise their rights. It feels a bit like paying your kid for good grades. We simply shouldn’t have to. That said, if moving NBA games 24 hours either direction helps focus a largely young audience on civics, then I’m for it. And I’ll save my Get off My Lawn speech for someone else.
Will it work? That’s the real question. Athletes and sports have increasingly tried to move the needle on campaigns, with fairly limited success. And sometimes with dire consequence – see Hershel Walker for more on that. Will more people vote because the NBA wants them to? Do avid sports fans react to their actions of their favorite stars? It’s hard to say. But it certainly seemed to work for Vinnie Testaverde.
Keith Strudler is the director of the School of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him on twitter at @KeithStrudler
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