Michael Johnson Calls On Sports Brands To Support Stars Who Want To Use Their Voice — Cannes Lions

Caroline Frost
·3 min read
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Legendary Olympic athlete Michael Johnson has called on sporting brands to support athletes who want to speak out about social change and other issues meaningful to them.

In an impassioned speech, given without notes, at the Cannes Lions international advertising festival, Johnson celebrated the modern era where athletes are more outspoken and pushing back “on the idea that they should just shut up and dribble.”

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He praised stars such as LeBron James, Marcus Rashford, Lewis Hamilton, Megan Rapinoe and Naomi Osaka as “athletes pushing back at the status quo and using their voices the way they want to and feel they should.”

As for sporting brands and companies, Johnson said: “Those partnerships — where an athlete decides to partner with a brand that shares their values — can be extremely helpful for an athlete when they make that decision to use their voice if they have that sort of support.”

He compared this with the 1990s and earlier, when such figures as Muhammad Ali and Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos faced the wrath of fans and officials alike by confronting injustice (Ali’s boxing licence stripped after protesting the Vietnam War, while Smith and Carlos ostracised by the U.S. sports establishment). Johnson said: “The athletes who came before me were true heroes, but also cautionary tales.”

As a result, Johnson went on, the 1990s saw athletes stay almost silent on matters outside sport. “The most sought after and marketable athletes were those [who] you couldn’t tell anything about where they stood politically,” he said. “They were deemed safe.”

Johnson told the audience in Cannes: “Sport has always been an incredibly powerful tool, at the forefront of social change and issues around the world.” He added he’d seen evidence of that throughout his life as an athlete, and in retirement. “It has empowered young girls to play sport, it has broken down barriers in communities,” he said.

“Athletes represent fierce competition that we all love to see — that drive for accomplishing something, but all in the structure and framework of playing by the rules, respecting competition, and that represents the ability to take the drive within the rules. It’s why athletes have such a powerful voice.”

He reflected on the tremendous amount of pressure for today’s athletes to use their voices, but noted, “It’s a personal choice, because such a decision was fraught with dangers – people going to troll you, leagues will not allow you to use your voice and platform, the IOC will not allow athletes to use that platform in certain ways.

“[It’s] the same with NFL — everyone knows about Colin Kaepernick.”

Johnson also cited the threats made to outspoken athletes and their families, plus invasions of privacy. He added that issues could be complex. “I may have opinions, but I only speak when I know what I’m saying, and I know what I’m up against.”

Johnson referenced his personal journey. “I spent decades as an athlete using my financial resources and time serving as an ambassador to different charities around the world,” he said. “It was very impactful and proud work for me.

“But it wasn’t until 2020, in the wake of George Floyd in the US, and I saw people of all backgrounds marching, using their voice to try to dismantle institutional racism. I thought, How can I be helpful? And I started to use my voice, knowing that’s fraught with all sorts of issues. It was difficult for me, but once I decided to do it, I saw how powerful it could — more powerful than anything before.”

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