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The Milwaukee Bucks鈥� startling refusal to take to the court for their NBA playoff game on Aug. 26 was the most consequential political development in sports over the last 50 years.

In recent years, the prevailing media narrative is that athletes have routinely used their  to 鈥溾�� or 鈥溾�� to a social issue.

Awareness, though, has its limits. Rarely does it lead to the kind of  the shooting by police of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin seems to demand.

In this case, the players met the moment, marking a fundamental shift in the direction of activism generated by Black athletes. The mass player walkouts that followed the Bucks鈥� initial protest were no exercise in awareness, .

Instead, these athletes were, in effect, going on strike鈥攁nd showing the world just how much economic leverage they could wield.

Pressure builds

When I began studying Black protest speech in sports around , athlete activism .

Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods had become marketing demigods, bringing sports into the . By signing increasingly lucrative endorsement deals with risk-averse corporate partners, Black athletes, , were trading their conscience for the promise of wealth.

The narrative, however, began to change around 2012, when the Miami Heat  for a widely circulated photograph meant to protest the murder of Trayvon Martin in Florida.

Two years later, athlete activism accelerated when the Los Angeles Clippers  their team owner, Donald Sterling, for making racist comments. NBA stars wore T-shirts that said 鈥溾�� to protest the killing of Eric Garner鈥檚 by police in New York. And five St. Louis Rams players  in 鈥渄on鈥檛 shoot鈥� poses to bring attention to the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Vice Sports declared 2014 鈥�.鈥�

Then, in 2016, Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the anthem to protest police brutality, ultimately becoming the avatar for the activist athlete. By the time the NFL鈥檚 biggest stars shot a  in the summer of 2020 to protest the murder of George Floyd, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell  that 鈥渨e should have listened earlier,鈥� despite having overseen Kaepernick鈥檚 effective banishment three years earlier.

Yet professional athletes鈥� reliance on Twitter, Instagram and T-shirts often falls short. Yes, they have an  and can often use social media to bypass traditional outlets. But thanks to their relationship with sponsors, advertisers and TV networks, professional sports leagues have an even bigger one.

This gives sports executives like Goodell the power to lead from behind, making the athletes鈥� message their own.

Perhaps the most cynical use of this technique came in 2017, after Donald Trump said that NFL players who kneel during the national anthem . When the Dallas Cowboys expressed their desire to kneel in solidarity, they were  by team owner Jerry Jones, a vocal , who agreed to participate鈥攑rovided that it did not occur .

The corporate dance

Of course, it is possible for activist athletes to compete with leagues for attention and influence. But this often requires a , such as when Nike announced its brand partnership with Kaepernick.

鈥淏elieve in something, even if it means sacrificing everything,鈥� read Kaepernick鈥檚 . This slogan鈥攚hich could just as easily have been catchphrase for the military or the police鈥攔eveals the anesthetizing effects corporate messaging can have on politics. Sure, athletes might appear in ads that mention social justice. But they鈥檙e ultimately there to sell products, and often  than they get in return.

Corporate messaging, moreover, depends not on moral imperatives, but on prevailing public sentiment and shareholder interest. The marketplace provides no guarantee that a company changing its Twitter avatar to say 鈥淏lack Lives Matter鈥� will always be more  than staying silent or doing the opposite.

Furthermore, it is impossible, by definition, for corporations to send anti-corporate messages. For these reasons, athlete activism鈥檚 relationship to corporate power is inherently fragile.

From talk to action

The recent work stoppage in professional sports is the most significant moment of athlete activism in a half century not because it 鈥渞aised awareness鈥� or 鈥渟tarted a conversation,鈥� but because it exercised labor鈥檚 most elemental form of political power: the strike.

By walking out, professional athletes leveraged their power to exploit, as sociologist Harry Edwards wrote in 1969, 鈥�the white man鈥檚 economic and almost religious involvement in athletics.鈥�

After a summer of racist police violence and nationwide protest, the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha forced athletes to confront persuasion鈥檚 futility and embrace their capacity for leverage. T-shirts and television commercials do not yield phone calls with attorneys general and lieutenant governors, .

Inside the locker room, the Milwaukee Bucks were on a conference call with Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul and Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, sources tell ESPN.

鈥� Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn)

The same point was made most forcefully in 2015, when football players at the University of Missouri  within 36 hours of announcing a strike for racial justice.

As major media organizations framed the walk-off as a 鈥溾�� and leagues announced that games had been 鈥�,鈥� these descriptors hid the threat striking athletes pose to sport鈥檚 economic health and racial order. In a vivid demonstration of worker agency, Black athletes refused to entertain audiences and make money for the wealthy owners of their teams.

This, they were saying, was not a conflict to be resolved through 鈥渓istening.鈥� It would require direct economic pressure.

It is tempting to view the walkout鈥檚 spread through , , , and even  as an expansion of the activist athlete鈥檚 platform. But maybe we should view it as the emergence of interdependent workers鈥� collectives. After suspending the season in March, the NBA  to resume play in Orlando at a Disney complex where all participants would undergo regular virus testing and live together under quarantine.

The 鈥渂ubble鈥� in Orlando was designed to protect the league鈥檚 assets from COVID-19. But what if, instead, the players鈥� forced proximity to each other ended up cultivating a radical consciousness and facilitating a spirit of worker resistance?

Where the athlete strike goes next is not entirely clear. The NBA has announced that games will resume, and the NFL and NFL Players Association issued a  indicating their intention to 鈥渦se our collective platform to call out racism and injustice whenever and wherever it occurs.鈥�

The statement is a reminder that when corporate power seeks common cause with labor, the result is almost always 鈥渄ifficult conversations about these issues.鈥� Corporations love conversations. They reduce politics to speech and forestall the pace of meaningful social change.

However, sports organizations tend to move more quickly when their .

In a polarized political environment under a president , I see attempts at moral persuasion as teardrops in a poisoned well. What began with the Milwaukee Bucks in Orlando signals a new form of athlete activism not because the platform is growing or the arguments are becoming more convincing, but because it eschews the trappings of symbolic spectacle.

The players are leveraging labor power to accomplish real political work.

This article was originally published by聽. It has been published here with permission.