Michael Serazio, Columnist

Why Sports Should Be More Political

Research shows that pro sports can change political attitudes. Athletes should take notice.

January 12, 2017 at 12:00 PM UTC

Michael Serazio is an assistant professor of communication at Boston College and the author of "Your Ad Here: The Cool Sell of Guerrilla Marketing."

Setting an example?
Photographer: Thearon W. Henderson/Getty

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In a few weeks, the National Football League will conclude an unusually politicized season. Most notably, Colin Kaepernick, the San Francisco 49ers' quarterback, kept up a long protest against the national anthem, occasionally joined by others around the league. In response, companies dropped sponsorships, fans burned jerseys and league executives denounced the protesters as traitors. The controversy was so intense that it may have even hurt the NFL's (otherwise stratospheric) television ratings.

Many critics of these protests asserted that sports and politics simply don't mix. But that's wrongheaded. As research I recently conducted with my colleague Emily Thorson shows, sports fandom does indeed correlate with political attitudes. And one issue that has dominated American politics in the 21st century is especially intertwined with sports culture: economic inequality.