‘The WNBA has led.’ Basketball players showered in praise after Warnock’s Georgia win
The foundation, little by little, was placed delicately into place starting in 2007.
Lisa Borders, then president of the Atlanta City Council, reached out to Stacey Abrams, who was serving in the Georgia House of Representatives, and her business partner Lara Hodgson, regarding her desire to bring a WNBA team to Atlanta.
“Lara was a huge sports fan, as was Lisa. I ... appreciated sports but was not as deeply engaged as they were,” Abrams told Forbes. “But I was a pretty good lawyer and was an entrepreneur and thought it was an amazing challenge, and so we worked together to actually recruit, not just the team, but to recruit a buyer to bring the team to Atlanta. And so I was part of the organizing committee.”
Thirteen years later, WNBA players with the Atlanta Dream, a team founded in 2008 with the help of Abrams, donned black T-shirts with the words “Vote Warnock” as they stepped off the buses and onto the hardwood floor inside the Bradenton, Florida, bubble they called home in August.
The attire was in reference to Rev. Raphael Warnock, Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s Democratic opponent for her U.S. senate seat. Loeffler, who owns a 49% stake in the Dream, had recently wrote a letter to WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert objecting to players in the league protesting the police-involved deaths of George Floyd and Breanna Taylor, McClatchy News reported. The players fought back, but not in a way anyone expected.
“When we realized what our owner was doing and how she was kind of using us and the Black Lives Matter movement for her political gain, we felt like we didn’t want to feel kind of lost as the pawns in this,” the Dream’s Elizabeth Williams told The New York Times.
As the players made sure their voices were heard, Warnock was polling at 9%, according to Forbes. Within 48 hours of WNBA players taking charge, Warnock’s campaign announced it had gained 3,500 new donors and raised $183,000.
On Tuesday night, media outlets declared Warnock, senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the winner of the runoff race with Loeffler, making him the first Black senator from Georgia.
Athletes and sports media figures want everyone to give credit where credit is due — to the often-overlooked WNBA.
Early Wednesday, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James tweeted his desire to “put together an ownership group” for the Atlanta Dream — possibly hinting that he is looking into buying Loeffler’s 49% stake, outlets reported.
Social media was quick to point out that Abrams, whose voter mobilization efforts helped flip the state, and the WNBA both deserve praise for the roles in the elections.
This story was originally published January 6, 2021 at 9:41 AM with the headline "‘The WNBA has led.’ Basketball players showered in praise after Warnock’s Georgia win."