A TV spot for the National Basketball League has outraged several African-American former players who say a scene featuring a black player hopping into bed with a white couple is insensitive and racist.
The commercial shows a series of Australian basketball players throwing a ball around a suburban house. Near the end, Sydney Kings forward Taj McCullough, who is African-American, leaps onto a white couple’s bed and nuzzles up to the woman. McCullough is the only black player featured in the commercial.
Former Melbourne Tigers player Darryl McDonald slammed the advertisement.
“It puts black Americans in a bad light,” McDonald, who is African-American, told Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. “That commercial has nothing to do with basketball. Nobody else would present their sport this way.”
In a statement Friday, the NBL defended the ad as “lighthearted and fun.”
“We believe viewers and supporters will certainly see the promo in the light in which it was intended, and we note the overwhelming feedback from the public that this is indeed the case,” the NBL said.
But Cal Bruton and Leroy Loggins, African-Americans who became naturalized Australians after starring in Australia’s domestic league in the 1980s, were both highly critical of the concept of the advertisement.
Bruton said it was particularly insensitive because it calls to mind the case of former NBL player Bryant Matthews. Matthews, an African-American, was convicted in 2007 of raping a white woman who was in bed with her partner at the time of the attack.
Although Bruton was hesitant to dub the spot overtly racist, he did say it was in “poor taste.”
“To be portrayed in that light, to me, just was a little bit below the belt,” Bruton told The Associated Press on Friday.
Bruton said the ad also illustrates the differences in sensitivities toward racial attitudes between Australia and the U.S. During his career, he recalled, Australians often referred to him as “the brilliant Negro guard.”
“You wouldn’t ever see an ad like that of Kobe Bryant jumping into bed in America,” he said.
Loggins, who played for Australia at the 1992 Olympics, said the depiction in the ad was off key.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Loggins told the Telegraph. “Why would you show a black American jumping into bed with a man’s wife to promote basketball? I don’t even know how someone could think up a commercial like that. You would never see any other sport in the world, that takes themselves seriously, portraying a black athlete that way.”
The Ten Network has been airing the commercial for the past two weeks. Ten’s head of sports marketing, Sam Heard, said Friday there were no plans to pull the ad.
“It is designed as a fun, lighthearted promo highlighting the fact the NBL is back in people’s homes, on free-to-air television,” he said.
