How Trump is leveraging sports and sports culture for his political brand

0:00This month, President Trump announced a new competition for young Americans. In the fall, we will host the first ever Patriot Games, an unprecedented four-day athletic event featuring the greatest high school athletes. One young man and one young woman from each state and territory will participate, he said. For the president, it's just the latest example of his keen interest in aligning his name with sports and sporting events. Trump had been in office less than a month when he went to the Super Bowl, making him the first sitting president to attend the big game.

0:38When Trump came up on the Jumbotron during the national anthem, he was met with a mix of cheers and jeers. A week later, he was at the Daytona 500. Then there was the U.S. Open, the Ryder Cup, two UFC matches in all more than a dozen major sporting events so far this year. He even went into the Fox broadcast booth during a Washington Commanders game. And let's see. We have a very important, I think this is a very important couple of plays. Here we go. It's a complete turnaround from his first term when Trump had to cancel a White House celebration for the Super Bowl winning Philadelphia Eagles because so few players wanted to attend.

1:19Now, seven years later, he hosts love fests with athletes in the Oval Office. Clay Travis is the founder of the sports website Outkick, and he's written a book about Trump's sports and politics. He said earlier this year when he flew on Air Force One with Trump, the president had Fox News on one TV and a UFC match on the other. He's a huge sports fan. Like, this isn't fake. I think a lot of politicians pretend to be sports fans because they're trying to connect with the regular guy or regular gal out there who is a sports fan. And it makes them seem like a normal person. I think this is Trump.

2:00Consider this. President Trump is using his position to access sporting events across the country and embed himself with teams and fans. He's leveraging sports and American sports culture to build up and amplify his political brand.

2:25It's Consider This from NPR.

2:39For President Trump, sporting events are a combination of good fun and good publicity. A senior White House official tells NPR that clips of the president at sporting events go, quote, insanely viral. Christine Brennan is a longtime sports columnist at USA Today and author of On Her Game. And she's here with us to discuss the president and his strong ties to sports. Welcome. Tam, it's great to be with you. Thank you. So, Christine, you have been covering the intersection between sports and Donald Trump off and on for a very long time now. What do you make of that relationship? Well, you're right about the long time.

3:19I actually covered something, Tam, in 1989 called the Tour de Trump. Long forgotten. Yes, bicycle race. Literally no one remembers maybe except me. And that ended in Atlantic City. And I was there at the press conference where Donald Trump was awarding the winner of the trophy. Again, a short-lived bike race. But the point is that Donald Trump has inserted himself and sponsored and supported sports in a way that I believe no other U.S. president ever has. It takes it to a whole new level. And Donald Trump's message, whether people like it or not, well, they see him at a sporting event, and they might have a good feeling about him as they see him on the field or giving out awards or whatever he's doing.

4:03So I think that's what Donald Trump has realized. And then, of course, the big one for Donald Trump, the golf courses. 16 golf courses that already exist that he owns, and then five more coming soon, according to the Trump website. So, again, a man who is involved in sports almost as much as he's involved in politics on some days. And that's a remarkable thing to say. Can you just talk a little bit about his version of sports fandom, though? Because some people who are critical of him would say, is he even a fan of a single team? Does he root for anyone? As far as I know, I have not seen him root for anyone.

4:45Although he owned the USFL team, and that's when he had Herschel Walker on his USFL team. So clearly, you know, if he owns something, I guess he's a fan of it. And that's where he wants to insert himself in sports as this national pastime. He has fun with sports. It's the competition that he loves. And of course, it's the cameras and the limelight that he gets. So I think sports gives Donald Trump so much of what he wants as a human being and certainly as a politician. And he loves a winner. Oh, Donald Trump always wants to attach himself to winners. He's everywhere. And because he has social media the way that, you know, presidents going back obviously had no megaphone the way he does, he can insert himself there in a way that sports fans are all over social media.

5:39So they're reading every word. Even if he's not at the games, Donald Trump is making himself known in the sports world. I'm thinking about one particular event that happened this past year, the FIFA World Cup club finals, where President Trump was there to present the trophy. And then he didn't leave the stage. And he was just there with the players. Exactly. He wouldn't leave. And Gianni Infantino, the FIFA president, was ushering him off the stage. And Trump stayed with the trophy lift. And he just wanted to be a part of all of it. So, you know, he's in the pictures. He's in the videos. What this portends potentially for the FIFA Men's World Cup next summer in the United States, also Mexico and Canada, and also then for the LA Olympics in 2028, Trump will still be president then.

6:30What does this portend in terms of what Trump's role will be and how he will insert himself in ways that we have never, ever seen a U.S. president do before? Yeah. As you say, 2026 and then 2028, this is going to be a huge presidency for sports. You now have the Patriot Games. The U.S. is hosting the World Cup. Trump is hosting a UFC fight night on the South Lawn of the White House. The following year, you'll have the NFL draft in Washington, D.C. on the National Mall and then the Olympics. So what are you watching for? Certainly the stars have aligned on the sports calendar perfectly for Donald Trump.

7:16Again, presidents have played golf. Presidents had college sports backgrounds. Gerald Ford comes to mind. Ronald Reagan. Even, you know, going back to Teddy Roosevelt, he actually saved football by having the forward pass invented back in 1905. But, you know, I think, again, with Donald Trump, it has worked out absolutely perfectly for him. At these events, whether they're national events or international events in the United States, or even if he decides to travel around the world and go to certain other sporting events, then the focus will be on Donald Trump more than it would ever be on any president.

7:54Whether it's the opening match or the final match, or again, the Olympic Games in LA, where we can only imagine what he might want to do, then the cameras will be on him much more than they would normally be on a president. This is his moment. Donald Trump has lived his entire life to have the good fortune and great luck to have these big sports events come right to his doorstep. And he's going to take full advantage of that. And we are talking about billions of eyeballs, billions of people watching these events around the world. Oh, for sure. I mean, they estimate that 5 billion people watch the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games.

8:35And the FIFA World Cup will have billions as well. So it's an audience unlike any other. There's no other venue, no other endeavor that will have the eyeballs that these sporting events will. Christine Brennan is a longtime sports columnist at USA Today and author of the book On Her Game. Thanks for being with us. Oh, my pleasure. Thanks so much. This episode was produced by Jeffrey Pierre and Henry Larson. It was edited by Sarah Robbins, Rebecca Metzler and Dana Farrington. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Tamara Keith.

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