In Defense of Sportsball (+Q&A Answers, pt. 1)

In the US, sports tend to be coded as right wing. In a country in which Presidential elections always fall within the margin of error from 50/50, nobody is surprised when Donald Trump is met with sustained, uproarious applause when he makes an appearance at a fight or college football game. Even when he showed up at UFC 309 in New York City - not exactly a hotbed of Trump support - nobody was shocked when he got the same pop as when he attended an SEC football game down South. The association has held up even after several years of sports leagues groveling before the dictates of left-wing race and gender ideology. Similarly, the military has and will always be coded as right-wing, regardless of how often General Mark Milley uses the phrase “white fragility” in front of Congress.

It makes sense. Sports and war are masculine pursuits. All the effort put into expanding their appeal has not changed that a bit. Yes, I am aware of women’s sports, but in every case they exist as appendages of their male counterparts. For example, the WNBA cannot fill an arena, and has been a money-losing pseudo-charity event run by the regular NBA, even though women are half the population of potential fans. The US Women’s Soccer team has enjoyed infinitely more success than the men’s team, but has never generated the same interest as the men’s team.

For the last decade or so, there’s been a trend among right wingers to deride “sportsball” as a distraction for the politically somnambulent. The left puts energy into political conflict, so the thinking goes, while people who should be right wing piss away that energy on games. It’s understandable, given the major sports leagues’ kowtowing to left-wing ideas that will, sooner rather than later, be seen by everyone as embarrassing fads. But it’s also wrong.

JON-A-THAN! JON-A-THAN! JON-A-THAN!