NAACP pushes boycott of SEC, ACC schools. How feasible is the movement?

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A new campaign launched by the NAACP calls for a boycott of some of college sports’ most prominent athletics programs in response to a national redistricting fight that represents “a sprint to erase Black political power,” the organization's president and CEO Derrick Johnson said in a statement.

On April 29, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Louisiana v. Callais that Louisiana’s recently redrawn congressional map marked an unconstitutional gerrymander along racial lines by creating a majority-Black district.

“The decision was a devastating blow to critical civil rights protections by permitting states to use partisan gerrymandering as a wholesale excuse to deny Black voters a voice in their government,” the Legal Defense Fund wrote in response.

The NAACP campaign, called “Out of Bounds,” takes aim at eight states — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas — and 13 specific athletics programs that generate at least $100 million annually “from national television deals, alumni donations, merchandise sales, and ticket sales,” the association said.

Those schools are Alabama. Auburn, Georgia, Florida, Florida State, LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi State, South Carolina, Clemson, Tennessee, Texas and Texas A&M.

The “Out of Bounds” campaign asks the nation’s top football and basketball prospects being recruited by these universities to “withhold their commitments until the states in question restore fair congressional maps and meaningful Black representation” and for current student-athletes playing at these schools to “consider their options, including the transfer portal.”

“This generation of Black athletes understands something that those who came before them were never afforded the chance to say so plainly: your talent is yours, and so is your community's political power,” said Tylik McMillan, the national director of the association’s Youth and College Division.

In addition, the campaign asks prominent recruits to “visit and seriously consider” historically black colleges and universities. Similarly, the NAACP is asking consumers to redirect spending toward HBCU “athletics programs, scholarship funds, NIL collectives, bands and alumni foundations.”

Earlier this week, Congressman Jonathan Jackson (D-Ill.) said Black college athletes “need to take a stand on civil rights. They should exercise their free-market will, go to the portal and look to transfer to a state where the governor and the state legislature is sensitive to African-Americans and their voting rights.”

How feasible is athlete boycott of SEC schools?

The well-intentioned goal of this campaign — to start, restoring state-level voting protections and congressional districts that reflect Black representation — could run into immediate headwinds because of the financial impact on prospective or current Black athletes.

While NIL payouts are not publicly available, the 13 schools cited by the NAACP include football and basketball programs that are purported to be among the highest-spending in college sports; in football, this is especially true for high-profile positions such as quarterback and left tackle.

While this has not translated into recent national success — the SEC has claimed one of the past six combined football and men’s basketball national championships — the opportunity to make life-changing money and stay close to home are two significant lures for Black athletes within the conference’s geographic footprint.

Asking top-level recruits and current athletes to avoid these states and these programs would limit their bargaining power. And even if willing to do so, an exodus of talent from the Southeast into the Big Ten’s footprint, for example, could have a trickle-down financial impact on Black athletes who would be shuffled into Group of Six conferences such as the MAC, where NIL payouts are dramatically lower than in the Big Ten and SEC.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: SEC, ACC athlete boycott pushed by NAACP. Can it really work?

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