Tenth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

This paper examines the work of African American National Basketball Association (NBA) players in organizing the increasingly powerful National Basketball Players Association and testifying in front of senate and congressional committees to counter the power of team owners and league officials in the 1970s. In looking at their antitrust case against the merger of the American Basketball Association (ABA) and the NBA, and their other efforts to increase player autonomy and mobility, I illustrates how black players led the fight for more control over their labor and brought changes to the aesthetics and rules of the game, as they became the demographic majority in the league. This struggle for control played out in the form of numerous, so-called “crises” in professional basketball, over not just the merger, but also the allegedly violent and criminal behavior of the players both on and off the court. Black players pushed back against the popular notion that the league was in crisis as they worked to gain more power over the game.