Sports activism has played a huge role in social change and how it has affected the sporting industry today. I want to focus on the Milwaukee Bucks Basketball team and how they began a historic NBA protest. In 2020 the team decided that they would refuse to play in the playoff game against the Orlando Magic two days after the police shot defenseless Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. They stayed inside the locker room and would refuse to go out on the court. After word got out, all other NBA teams playing in the playoffs refused to play their games and even knelt on the court locking arms with one another in protest. These players were protesting against police brutality against black individuals. This caused the rest of the season to a complete halt for the time being. Other sports also joined the NBA’s decision to stop playing such as Major league Soccer and Major league Baseball. Word quickly spread about this movement, not only was it major news headlines all over the country, players on the Bucks and on all other sports teams began to take the matter into their own hands. They spread the word through their own personal social media accounts and the sports teams accounts on platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. Doing this also sparked other celebrities’ support in the United States and other Countries to spread the word and to speak out against police brutality. For instance a famous rapper, known as Little Wayne tweeted at the Bucks in support of their movement. All of the support from athletes and other famous influencers, it enhanced the impact of the Bucks protesting for police brutality. To this day the movement on police brutality still continues and athletes have become a major voice on the topic making a change in society. There have continued to be protests in the street and on social media to bring change to the world. This advocacy event relates to the article Athletes and activism: The long, defiant history of sports protests by Steve Wulf because he talks about how kneeling during a national anthem is not an unprecedented action and it dates back in time since the beginning of sports as an athletes way to start a protest on “the constant struggle for justice.” (Wulf, 2019) This article is worth taking time to read due to it being full of stories of athlete activism throughout history. 

References: 
Wulf, S. (2019) Athletes and activism: The long, defiant history of sports protests. The Undefeated.