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

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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.” 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