Southpaw 30: The Kids Are Not Alright
Original Southpaw-Data for Progress polling, and a reading list on trans athlete bans.
Dear Readers,
A lot has been going on in the world of sports, so we’re tackling two subjects today. First, we’ll start with some Southpaw-exclusive content, including an original poll that we had done measuring popular support for various proposals to reform the NCAA. Second, we’ve curated a list of things to read about the trans athlete bans that Republicans have introduced in statehouses around the country. Thanks as always for reading!
-Ian and Calder
Voters support college athletes’ rights
As the Biden administration’s priorities come into focus, it’s become clear that the White House is hyper-focused on passing popular legislation. Biden’s two biggest legislative initiatives thus far—the coronavirus relief bill and the infrastructure package—enjoy widespread support from the American people, and administration officials have presented the bills’ popularity as key parts of their appeal. From an electoral perspective, Democrats’ hope seems to be that that by passing overwhelmingly popular bills, they can overcome the left’s growing structural disadvantages in the Senate, House, and Electoral College to stay in power and grow their majorities. Though legislators and advocacy groups can do outreach to increase support for various proposals, we think it’s unlikely that the Biden White House will throw its full weight behind any bills that lack a fairly high level of baseline support.
That’s why it’s very good news that Americans overwhelmingly believe that college athletes should profit from their participation in NCAA sports. The effort to protect the economic rights of athletes by reforming the NCAA’s business model is moving quickly, as a growing number of states have passed laws to allow athletes to profit from their personal brand, and lawmakers in Congress—including Senator Cory Booker, Senator Richard Blumenthal, and Senator Chris Murphy—have introduced legislation that would allow college athletes to make money either from endorsement deals or by sharing in the NCAA’s profits. However, there’s not a lot of publicly-available polling on these proposals, so we decided to send some questions over to the progressive polling firm Data for Progress (where a friend of ours works—thank you, Ethan) who put them into the field for us. Here are the top-line results:
As you can see, 53 percent of Americans support a proposal to allow college athletes to earn money from their NIL, while only 35 percent oppose the measure. A strong majority of both Democrats (58-27) and independent voters (55-33), and even a narrow majority of Republicans (45-44) support the proposal.
But the polling suggests that lawmakers should set their sights even higher. A clear majority of Americans also support a more expansive proposal to give athletes a share of the NCAA’s profits—a key pillar of the College Athlete Bill of Rights that Sens. Booker and Blumenthal have introduced in the Senate. In total, 51 percent of respondents supported this policy, while only 35 percent oppose it. Democrats supported it 57 percent to 29 percent, independents supported it by a 53-33 margin, while only a slim majority of Republicans opposed it (42 percent support, 46 percent oppose).
We hope to have more in-depth analysis of the legislative fight over college athletes’ rights soon, but we wanted to make this polling publicly available, if only to demonstrate that while some of the issues that you read in this newsletter may sound idiosyncratic, when you boil many of them down to their component parts, they are in fact widely popular.
Lawmakers are attacking trans kids. Here’s what you need to know.
In less good news, a growing number of states have passed or are considering laws to ban trans kids—especially transgender women—from high school and college sports. Some of these bills go even further—Arkansas, for example, recently became the first state to ban all gender-affirming healthcare for trans kids, with the legislature overriding Governor Asa Hutchinson’s veto to pass the bill.
To be clear, these laws are opportunistic, malicious, and cruel. There's no solid evidence to suggest that trans athletes have any sort of competitive advantage in sports, and medical research shows that banning transgender kids from receiving gender-affirming medical treatment increases the risk of suicide and long-term mental health problems. Children who undergo treatment for gender transition before they hit puberty can have a much easier time transitioning.
As lawmakers continue to target trans kids, there’s been a lot of promising activism—and even some good journalism—on this issue. We wanted to share some of the latter with you here.
“The massive Republican push to ban trans athletes, explained,” by Katelyn Burns in Vox (March 26, 2021).
“The fight for the future of transgender athletes,” by Will Hobson in The Washington Post (April 15, 2021).
“Anti-Trans Bills Are Wildly Unpopular. But Here's Why the GOP Keeps Passing Them,” by Carter Sherman in Vice (April 16, 2021).
“Trans kids deserve the same opportunity that made my NFL career possible,” by RK Russell in The Guardian (April 15, 2021).
“Transphobic sports ban attempts to solve a problem that doesn’t exist,” by Catherine Caruso in The Philadelphia Inquirer (April 14, 2021).
“Living Nonbinary in a Binary Sports World,” by Britni de la Cretaz in Sports Illustrated (March 16, 2021).
RODNEY’S ROUNDUP
Do you want to read about. . .
. . . fallout from Major League Baseball’s Georgia decision on Jackie Robinson Day? “Jackie Robinson would have supported MLB moving the All-Star Game from Georgia,” by Dave Zirin for MSNBC (April 15, 2021).
. . . when ‘progressive’ sports strategy is also smart? “Hires such as United’s Lucy Rushton are called progressive. Soon they’ll be recognized as smart,” by Barry Svrluga in The Washington Post (April 16, 2021).