Think we’re overreacting.? In The Sporting News list of the 100 Most Powerful People In Sports, only three blacks made the cut in 1991 and only six this year. While the circumstances differ for each sport, there are many similarities. For one thing, the crazy theories of black intellectual inferiority are alive and well–especially in baseball and football. After all, managers have to think, and the conventional wisdom among sports’ ruling elite is that, well, blacks don’t think as well as whites. Another reason: the white buddy system has gotten stronger in modern-day sports. These days, the head-coaching function is, in essence, a strong partnership between the man on the field and the general manager in the front office. Because there must be a high level of trust and comfort between the two, the white general managers name their friends or someone compatible from the white old-boy network. Minorities also struggle because they have little power within sports itself. Major strides have been made only when politically connected minorities threatened to embarrass sports executives. For example: black members of the Birmingham city council-not blacks in the sports business-focused the spotlight on the Shoal Creek Country Club, which excluded only blacks and happened to be the site of the PGA Championship in 1990. They helped force officials to immediately re-examine their public image and crack down on golf clubs that continue such practices and hope to host a tour event.
Since minorities have little power within sports, direct action by individuals and groups with credible reputations may be the only way to gain access to upper management positions. This can be accomplished in two ways: lawsuits and boycotts. Legal action, for instance, has shown some positive results. In fact, some cases involving black athletes have reached the Supreme Court. The first, in 1950, opened public golf courses in Miami Springs, Fla., to blacks. The second forced boxing officials to let Muhammad Ali work despite his refusal to serve in the military because of his Muslim beliefs.
Boycotts can work, too–largely because of a very simple fact of sports life in America: television calls the shots. It doesn’t matter that blacks make up only 10 percent of the viewing audience for the major sports. What matters is that the boom in sports-broadcasting outlets-from the networks to cable-makes it easy for groups to organize boycotts of specific teams and channels. Sports events live and die by their television ratings. Shoal Creek officials quickly concluded that if major TV advertisers backed out-which they started to do-they would have a financial disaster on their hands.
Of course, there has been some progress; there are now two black head coaches in football. But two black coaches doth not parity make. Qualified minorities want fair opportunities at all positions of management, from the ticket office to general manager and athletic director. If not, there may be a resurgence of the fervor, anger and action which brought about the end of legal segregation in the ’60s.
