Southpaw #5: WNBA players are trying to oust their owner from the Senate, and it might just work.

The Atlanta Dream’s campaign against Sen. Kelly Loeffler is taking athletic activism to a whole new level.

Dear Southpaw readers,

It was a big week in sports. The most anticlimactic World Series in recent memory got underway in Arlington, Texas, and we learned that the Washington Football Team will probably stay “the Washington Football Team” for at least another year. Meanwhile, Fox Sports bigwigs Joe Buck and Troy Aikman got caught on a hot mic saying something reasonable about the NFL’s alliance with the U.S. military, prompting a deluge of angry tweets from people who love watching flyovers on television. Then, after criticizing these flyovers as an irresponsible waste of jet fuel, Buck hopped on one of his seven flights on a private jet last week, calling it a “necessary evil” to ensure that America’s favorite broadcaster could work 17 games in 18 days. While Buck crisscrossed the country in his Gulfstream, Aikman took to Twitter to perform his own impressive feat of rhetorical gymnastics.

Troy Aikman @TroyAikman

I love a flyover but It was odd to see one over a mostly empty stadium but I am an unwavering patriot that loves this country, has always respected our flag, supported the men and women in the armed forces as well as those in uniform who serve & protect and for anyone to suggest

Troy Aikman @TroyAikman

otherwise doesn’t know me, my beliefs or what I have stood for my entire life.🇺🇸

“🇺🇸,” indeed. Oy vey.

In other news, we’ll be taking a break from sports commentary next week to release a special “Southpaw Election Edition,” since even we won’t give a shit about sports with an election two days away. Consider this week’s feature story—about the Atlanta Dream’s effort to oust Georgia’s Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler—a sneak preview.

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Black women have always been the vanguard of athletic activism. This year, they might actually flip the Senate.

Elizabeth Williams/Instagram

When it comes to elections, progressives might wish that sports and politics did not mix. Uber-wealthy owners of professional sports team have traditionally wielded significant influence over national elections, donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to reactionary groups and conservative candidates, while their players, who tend to be to the left of their owners, sit on the sidelines.

But this year, members of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream are challenging management’s monopoly on electoral influence. The team is intervening loudly and directly in the special election for a Georgia Senate seat, occupied by Dream minority owner and Trump toady Kelly Loeffler. And, as it so happens, they couldn’t have picked a better race to get involved in. Ten days out from the election, Loeffler is trailing her Democratic opponent Raphael Warnock 32-23 in the the polls, with a Republican challenger, Doug Collins, in polling at 17 percent. With no single candidate likely to earn a majority of the vote, the race will probably result in a run-off between Loeffler and Warnock in early January. Together with Georgia’s other Senate race between incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue and Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff—polls currently show the two tied at 43 percent—the outcome of the special election could play a decisive role in determining whether Democrats regain control of the Senate.

A handful of WNBA players are right in the thick of the race. The conflict between the Dream and Loeffler dates back to July, when Loeffler, who has owned a minority stake in the Dream since 2010, denounced the WNBA’s support of the Black Lives Matter Movement. Instead of publicly escalating the conflict with Loeffler, members of the Dream stopped using Loeffler’s name in public statements and started quietly vetting her opponents. In early August, the players threw their weight behind Warnock, wearing “Vote Warnock” shirts to their televised games and sharing their support on social media. In the days following the t-shirt endorsement, Warnock’s campaign raised $236,000. And since the August announcement, Warnock, who was polling in third and in danger of not making the runoff, is now almost certain to advance to the next stage of the race. Now out of the WNBA bubble, members of the team have continued campaigning for Warnock in person and online.

The effort by a group of active players to launch a coordinated campaign in support of a specific candidate is without precedent in the history of athletic activism. A handful of active players have endorsed presidential candidates in recent election cycles—Chris Paul and Steph Curry are notable examples—but never has a team collectively campaigned for a candidate, let alone a candidate for Senate, and let alone during their live televised games. So while it might not appear particularly radical for a group of professional athletes to campaign for a mainstream progressive candidate, the Dream’s action stands out, especially against the backdrop of the NBA, NFL, and MLB’s cheap attempts to maintain a veneer of non-partisan neutrality. Not for the first time, WNBA players have been willing to say what their male colleagues will not: that voting matters, but not as much as voting for the right people. And the Dream’s example seems to be spreading: on Wednesday, the Seattle Storm became the first team to collectively endorse the Biden-Harris presidential ticket.

That WNBA players are leading the charge into electoral politics doesn’t come as much of a surprise. The W has long been the most outspokenly progressive of the country’s professional sports leagues, fueled by its majority-Black rosters and by a sizable minority of openly-queer players. What is surprising about the W’s latest effort, however, is that the players are actually getting credit for it. Despite leading the way on a range of hot-button issues, Black female athletes’ activism have been mostly written out of the broader history of political protest in sports. Before Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised black-gloved fists on the podium at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, Wyomia Tyus, a Black female sprinter who was the first Olympian to ever repeat gold in the 100-meter dash, wore black shorts instead of the USA’s white uniform shorts to protest anti-Black racism. After Smith and Carlos were sent home from the games, Tyus dedicated her gold medal to the two men. Smith and Carlos’ protest was immediately memorialized as a defining moment in the history of athletic activism. Tyus’s protest and subsequent comments did not even make the papers.

In 2003, when Colin Kaepernick was 15 years old, Toni Smith-Thompson, then a player on Manhattanville College’s women’s basketball team, drew significant media attention when she turned her back to the flag during the pre-game performance of the National Anthem. The press covered Smith-Thompson’s action as a protest against the U.S. invasion of Iraq, but she has since said that she meant to draw attention to a whole range of systemic injustices, including anti-Black racism, violence against women and indigenous people, and the U.S prison-industrial complex. Her story faded from public consciousness, only to re-emerge when Kaepernick adopted her tactics on the national stage.

And in 2016, before Kaepernick took a knee, members of the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx started the public protests against the the police murders of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling by wearing black warm-up shirts emblazoned with “Change Starts With Us — Justice & Accountability” on the front and “Black Lives Matter” on the back. Days after the Lynx protest, LeBron James, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, and Dwayne Wade made headlines with their now-famous speech at the Espy Awards. Black female athletes have often been ahead of their male colleagues, only to have the men’s stories eventually eclipse their own.

Beyond these high-profile examples, female athletes have been fighting more sustained but less visible battles for equal rights and equal respect for decades. In 2003, Sheryl Swoops, a founding member of the WNBA, became the first professional basketball player to publicly come out as gay. (Jason Collins, the first NBA player to publicly come out, did so in 2013.) The Williams sisters have used their platform atop the world of professional tennis to advocate for pay equity since at least 2005, and in 2019, the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team took the unprecedented step of filing a gender discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation in federal court. This year, Black female athletes like Penn State swimmer Olivia Jack have led the charge to organize anti-racist direct action and COVID-19 protections within the NCAA. Popular narratives have also elided these battles.

The Dream has created an opportunity to flip the script. Even if Loeffler wins, no one will be able to deny that they were the first group of professional athletes to take a decisive step into the electoral arena. If she loses—and especially if she loses after a drawn-out run-off in January—the Dream will have a very legitimate claim to having played a decisive role in her defeat, and, if the stars align, in the Democrats’ reclamation of the Senate. In either event, the Dream has set a new standard for athletes who want to use their public platform to facilitate political change. The NFL can hang its hat on endzone decorations. The WNBA will settle for a Senate seat.

Go Deeper

For background on the WNBA’s long history of social and political activism: “How the Most Socially Progressive Pro League Got That Way,” by Jonathan Abrams and Natalie Weiner in The New York Times (October 16, 2020).

For a star-studded panel about the history of activism by Black female athletes: “Black Women’s Athletic Activism: Past, Present, and Future,” hosted by Amira Rose Davis via Penn State (October 21, 2020).

For analysis of the WNBA’s role in the recent NBA wildcat strike this summer: “The WNBA Made the NBA Strike Possible,” by Maitreyi Anantharaman in Slate (August 28, 2020).

For an interview with Professor Amira Rose Davis about the WNBA’s opposition to Loeffler and its place in the league’s history: “Could the WNBA Help Flip the Senate?” by Mary Harris in Slate (October 13, 2020).

For a look at Seattle Storm star Sue Bird’s role in the protests against Sen. Kelly Loeffler: “How Seattle Storm Star Sue Bird Helped Escalate Protests Against Senator Kelly Loeffler,” by Lindsey Wisniewski in NBC Sports (August 6, 2020).

For a details on the WNBA’s groundbreaking collective bargaining agreement and the players’ fight for equal pay: “The Women of the WNBA Just Scored a Historic Victory in the Fight for Equal Pay,” by Abby Gardner in Glamour (January 14, 2020)

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RODNEY’S ROUNDUP

Do you want to read about . . .

. . . how winning allows college coaches to get away with abuse? “College Sports Are Built To Enable Abusive Freaks Like Gregg Marshall,” by Patrick Redford in Defector (October 23, 2020).

. . . Brett Favre chatting with Donald Trump about “sticking to sports?” “If Brett Favre wants to help Black athletes, he shouldn't promote Trump's agenda,” by LZ Granderson in the LA Times (October 24, 2020).

. . . pandemic baseball 100 years ago? “This Year's World Series Isn't the First Played During a Pandemic. Here's What Happened to Baseball in 1918” by Melissa August in TIME (October 23, 2020).