Athletes and Media Aren’t Going to Just “Stick to Sports” Any Longer

Michael Jordan was the greatest.

No, I’m not talking about greatest basketball player or greatest athlete—though, c’mon…that too. Michael Jordan was the greatest brand of all time. Jordan wasn’t just a brand ambassador, he was a phenom of selling power. While the slogans and the playing prowess set him up for success, Jordan’s overarching moneymaking ability and staying power had a lot to do with the fact that he was about as sterilized an athlete as brands like Nike, McDonalds and Gatorade could hope for.

PARIS, FRANCE – JUNE 12: Michael Jordan attends a press conference for the celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Air Jordan Shoe during the ‘Palais 23’ interactive exhibition dedicated to Michael Jordan at Palais de Tokyo in Paris on June 12, 2015 in Paris, France. (Photo by Catherine Steenkeste/Getty Images)

Like any great, he avoided the unforced errors.

Jordan is—and always will be—the standard bearer for people who want others to: “Stick to sports.”

In Don Povia’s recent post about “Athletes and Advocacy,” the people he spoke to seemed to believe Jordan’s standard bearing was still status quo in regards to advocacy. Many seemed to echo these sentiments by “The Cauldron” writer Julie DiCaro:

"Unfortunately, endorsement considerations are paramount to many athletes and their advisers, and while I don’t advocate shaming athletes into speaking out when they’re not comfortable, it’s troubling that so few really visible athletes use the platform they are given."

I don’t disagree, I do think it’s troubling that so few use the platform they’re given for advocacy, but I also have hope because I can see the tide turning. I can feel the wind changing. I have seen the future, my friends, and the future is now!

Don’t believe me? Just look around.

Today’s athletes are at the same crux the rest of us are in. The baby boomers (52-70) who are running things don’t really understand the millennials (18-35) who make up the vast majority of their teams. This isn’t going to be another one of those “get off my lawn” diatribes or plea for the older generation to pander to the younger crop, but it’s instructive to see how Jordan’s anti-advocacy playbook is long past its prime.

Within that subset of players, the older in the group grew up at a time when the digital era was just beginning. A person who is 30 today—at least contemplating retirement by athletic standards—didn’t have high-speed internet until their teens and didn’t have smart phones until their 20s. On the low end, today’s rookies grew up in a world where computers, social media and YouTube superstars make a whole lot more sense.

Think of it this way: You know how we used to joke about old people with VCRs that blink 12:00? Yeah, that’s every rookie in every sports league rolling their eyes when the veterans talk about any sort of technology or new app/social network.

We have this stuff; the next generation is ingrained in it.

It’s not just athletes.

The contrast can be seen just as starkly in sports media where an older generation still does things like put “views do not reflect my employer” in their Twitter bios even though it doesn’t do a darn thing and a person’s views will ALWAYS reflect on the person who decided to hire them. The older generation of sports media still thinks it wise to have two separate (or more) accounts for sports takes and personal takes—not understanding that people like to follow people on social media, not link-spamming brands.

It’s an older generation that convinced Adam Schefter to stop being himself on Twitter when he moved to ESPN, and is convinced Skip Bayless is a prolific user even though he follows zero people. This generational bias is still in control and evident every time a person on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or whatever sends a terse: “Your job is covering sports, what do you know about…?”

Because, you know, sports journalists always wander around the bars and watercoolers of America and say things like, “Bill, you make car parts for a living. Why do you think you get to talk about sports? UNFOLLOW!”

Meanwhile, the younger generation of sports media is doing things like heading to a presidential town hall as ESPN’s Jemele Hill just did because her voice has become powerful on social issues.

Even the next generation of digital outlets seem to understand that sports goes hand-in-hand with more important social issues. The Ringer, The Undefeated, Vice Sports, The (aforementioned) Cauldron as well as all of the similar sites I’ll forget to mention blend sports with social and pop culture topics as if they’re inseparable. This very site you’re reading this on was foundedwith the idea that sports fans are interested in more than just what’s out on the field.

This isn’t shoehorning other topics into sports. It’s sports finally catching up where the rest of the world has been heading.

There is no separating who you are in one walk of life from who you are elsewhere anymore.

We are just too connected.

It is impossible to exist in 2016 without having an almost immediate ability to send a thought out into the ether with a potential for that thought being seen by innumerable people. Athletes (or those who cover them) are shaped by that ability as much as anyone. Maybe you follow so-and-so for their thoughts on basketball, but that person also has thoughts on politics and race and sexuality and the latest episode of Game of Thrones.

At the same time, it’s impossible to exist without being fed viewpoints about a variety of topics. No matter how closely one curates their social media life, we all get bombarded with a vast cacophony of opinions on all sorts of nonsense we might not otherwise care about. Love sports? Awesome, but now here’s 20 of your friends who care about essential oils, GMO crops and the latest senate poll numbers! Athletes face the same exact situation, and one can almost see the internal battle LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and others face when their instinct is to avoid forming and sharing opinions on non-sports topics, but the constant input is creating a need (read: obligation) to react.

The real battle we’re fighting in 2016 isn’t how to get athletes and media to stick to sports. The real battle we’re fighting is how to get along with one another when we disagree. It’s an age-old battle, yes, but the battlefield is different now. Once upon a time, social rules like “don’t talk religion, politics or money at the dinner table” kept our conversation civilized (or, you know, about sports…), but now people eat dinner at their laptops or with their mobiles devices open and can be holding three different conversations at once on three different apps about three different topics.

The real question isn’t whether your favorite athlete can just shut up and play, it’s whether or not you respect him enough to appreciate what he does even though you may not agree with him on every single viewpoint.

It’s a new world out there, and our digital footprint has us all just a little bit closer than we used to be. Get comfortable, because “sticking to sports” is no longer an option.