The National Basketball Association, a league renowned for its support of civil rights going back to the Bill Russell era, is now connected to the former member of Sudan’s Parliament Siham Hassan Hasaballah, who organized soup kitchens out of her home after the country’s most recent war began in 2023. Just weeks ago, she was executed in Darfur by a genocidal militia called the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF.

The NBA, a league that actively promoted racial justice in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder, is now connected to the Saudi Maternity Hospital in Darfur, where RSF soldiers murdered hundreds of patients and health workers last month. One video shot by RSF soldiers themselves reveals a dozen victims lying on the floor, while an RSF soldier kills an elderly survivor. Tedros Ghebreyesus, the Director of the World Health Organization, was “appalled and deeply shocked by reports of the tragic killing of more than 460 patients and companions” at the hospital.

The NBA, a league undertaking major investments in youth programs in Africa and around the world, is now connected to the world’s fastest displacement crisis taking place now in Sudan, which is the “largest humanitarian crisis ever recorded,” according to the International Rescue Committee.

What’s the connection? The NBA has developed a deep and evolving commercial partnership with the United Arab Emirates, which is providing weapons and support to the RSF, that genocidal Sudanese militia. The most visible and public manifestation of the relationship is the Emirates NBA Cup, the increasingly popular in-season tournament sponsored by the UAE’s flagship airline. The tournament's final round will take place this coming Tuesday in Las Vegas.

Global business dealings are complex, but surely genocide should be a red line for the NBA.

The NBA also has a deepening partnership with Rwanda, which over the last two years has sent thousands of troops into neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, sponsored one of the deadliest militias in all of Africa—the M23—in support of its Congo intervention, and looted Congo’s valuable natural resources.

The league is now one degree of separation away from the two worst abusers of human rights in all of Africa: the RSF and M23.

“Sportswashing” has a long history. The Roman Empire had its bread and circuses. Hitler hosted the 1936 Summer Olympics, Mussolini hosted the 1934 World Cup, and Putin hosted the 2014 Winter Olympics. Saudi Arabia owns the LIV golf league. They all recognized that attention from their own misdeeds could easily be diverted by investing in sporting events that entertain the masses.

To that end, the NBA relationship isn’t the only sportswashing........

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