- President says ratings are down and unlikely to recover
- Players from NBA have boycotted games over police brutality
NBA players kneeling before games has become a common sight.
Photograph: Kim Klement/USA Today Sports
On Monday, Donald Trump defended Kyle Rittenhouse, the teenager charged with killing two protesters at anti-racism protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last week. On Tuesday, however, he was quite happy to attack NBA players for boycotting games over police brutality.
“People are tired of watching the highly political @NBA,” wrote Trump on Twitter. “Basketball ratings are WAY down, and they won’t be coming back. I hope football and baseball are watching and learning because the same thing will be happening to them. Stand tall for our Country and our Flag!!!”
Donald J. Trump
(@realDonaldTrump)People are tired of watching the highly political @NBA. Basketball ratings are WAY down, and they won’t be coming back. I hope football and baseball are watching and learning because the same thing will be happening to them. Stand tall for our Country and our Flag!!!
Trump is correct that the NBA’s ratings have declined: the Athletic reported last month that viewership is down 45% since the 2011-12 season on network television broadcasts and 20% on ESPN. However, it is hard to put the blame entirely on politics: numbers were down before player protests started, while television viewership has declined generally as people watch online or on illegal feeds. Younger viewers are also believed to prefer highlights over watching full games.
The Milwaukee Bucks were the first team to boycott a game, doing so last week in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Blake, who is black, was shot in the back in front of three of his children by a white police officer. Other NBA teams followed, as did teams in the WNBA, MLS, MLB and NHL.
Although white athletes have participated in the recent round of protests, more than 80% of NBA players are black, and Trump has a long history of attacking black athletes. In 2017, he called black NFL players kneeling during the national anthem “sons of bitches”, and has traded insults with the NBA’s biggest star, LeBron James.
The NFL, the most popular league in the United States, starts its season later this month. It saw the first player protests against racism and police brutality when Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem in 2016. Players from nearly every team in the NFL, which generally has a more conservative fanbase than the NBA, said they intend to stage some sort of protest during the upcoming season.
