ANALYZING ATHLETE ACTIVISM: A CAREFUL LOOK AT ELITE AMERICAN ATHLETES’ COMMITMENT TO SOCIAL CHANGE

Abstract

Scholars and journalists have noted the prevalence of social and political activism by American athletes in recent years (Cashmore, Dixon and Cleland 2023; Hartmann 2022; Williams 2022; Germano and Lewis 2020; and Coombs and Cassilo 2017). Athlete activism refers to the tendency of athletes to participate in a deliberate, public action that aims to accomplish specific observable policy changes (Cooper, Macaulay and Rodriguez 2019; Farrell 2019; Fuad-Luke 2009). However, empirical studies of athlete activists that explicitly define and quantify the prevalence of athlete activism are lacking. Additionally, existing research on athlete activism is heavily focused on male athletes, while the activism of female athletes remains understudied (MacDonald and Cleland 2022; McClearan and Fisher 2021; Cooky and Antunovic 2020; Coombs et al. 2020). To fill these gaps in the burgeoning literature on athlete activism, I built a novel dataset of 84 American athlete activists using the winners of the Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly (ESPY) awards from 2017-2019 and 2021-2022. I then conducted systematic online searches for each athlete to identify instances of activist engagement, in order to assess how widespread activism is among a sample of elite American athletes. I found that 35 (41.7%) of the athletes in my sample have engaged in activism, including 15 (62.5%) of the 24 female athletes and 20 (33.3%) of the 60 male athletes. I also conducted a follow-up analysis of each activist athlete’s activities to determine how shallow or deep their commitment to activism was; for instance, whether they were outspoken on more than one political issue, and how sustained their efforts were. I found that a very small percentage (16.7%) of athletes in the sample were serious activists, and thus labeled “athlete activists.” The remainder of the athletes in the sample who have engaged in activism participated in ad hoc social media postings and generalized public service statements, for example. I also found that female athletes represent a larger share of “athlete activists” than male athletes, raising questions about gendered expectations to engage in activism.