Sports enthusiasts in MAGA world are having a conniption over the NAACP’s call for athletes to boycott a list of major universities in states where Republicans have launched assaults on Black voting rights. The list includes major athletic powerhouses in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas — all southern states that have gerrymandered districts in ways that dilute Black voter power, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision.
The NAACP announced the call to boycott Tuesday, urging students to consider attending historically Black colleges and universities instead. College sports, and especially college football, are a key source of income and pride for several states. A boycott could pose an obvious threat to this cash cow. One can almost hear the desperation in the responses from some conservatives, like South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson.
Among some MAGA influencers’ response to the boycott request, there’s an arrogance in their assumption that there’s no chance any athlete would participate — an assumption being made because players can now make money due to current name, image and likeness rules.
Examples below:
These influencers may be counting on athletes to overlook the fact that Donald Trump is currently opposed to, and actively working to dismantle, the very NIL system that allows players to make the money.
While some conservatives may prefer to laugh off this boycott, there’s ample evidence that many major college athletic programs are heavily reliant on Black athletes.
And some southern schools are extremely tender about being viewed as breeding grounds for racism. When he was the head football coach at the University of Mississippi, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., the Republican nominee for Alabama governor, admitted that the state’s reverence for the Confederate flag hurt the school’s recruiting, and had a hand in the decision to ban the flag at Ole Miss games.
More recently, Louisiana State University football coach Lane Kiffin spurred a bit of a tantrum among Ole Miss fans when he said potential recruits and their families raised concerns about racism at Ole Miss when he was head coach there, and he said LSU was better by comparison.
Public backlash prompted an apology from Kiffin, underscoring my impression that many white fans of college sports and officials overseeing programs are aware of how racism on campus can potentially undercut the success of the teams they root for.








