LeBron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers, one of the most famous athletes in the country, then called Trump a “bum” on Twitter. Before that, James blamed the president for making hate “fashionable” again.
Given the racial diversity of the NBA's fan base, which is more reflective of the makeup of the Democratic Party than that of the GOP, the politics of its players largely resonate with NBA viewers, O’Grady said in an interview Jan. 9.
During the NBA’s 2016-2017 regular season, 66 percent of TV viewers were racial minorities, according to data from ratings provider Nielsen: Blacks made up 47 percent of the audience, Hispanics 11 percent and Asians 8 percent.
Whites made up 34 percent of the NBA’s audience, a drop from 40 percent in the 2012-2013 regular season, according to Nielsen’s 2013 “Year in Sports Media” report. In 2013, black viewership was 45 percent. The report did not list figures for other minority groups.
Morning Consult data shows black adults (67 percent) are more likely than white adults (44 percent) to hold a positive view of the NBA; and whites are twice as likely as black adults to hold negative impressions of the league (22 percent versus 11 percent).
But the NBA, which did not respond to a request for comment, was not always a progressive stronghold, Edelman said.
Canadian national James Naismith invented basketball for his students at a Young Men's Christian Association in Springfield, Mass., where the sport was “seen as something that carried the values of muscular Christianity,” Edelman said.
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