Professional sports has long occupied a unique space in America’s culture. Not only is it the most time-honored form of entertainment in the country, but it’s also been shown to promote the most unity and progress — even in times of political strife.
Unfortunately, overt attempts by left-wing activists are making professional sports nearly unwatchable for anyone who doesn’t want to have the politics of the day thrown in their faces constantly.
Let’s pause for a second, because we know how the left is going to react to that statement. If sports is a force for social good in America, then why is promoting political priorities a bad thing? This is actually pretty easy to answer — the politics we get from ESPN now is not the same message we got from the trailblazers of the past. Men like Jackie Robinson championed America and the idea of a unified country. Men like Colin Kaepernick yearn for division at every opportunity.
Why does sports analysis have to include talking points straight out of an anthropology class? Why are players actually encouraged to stage some sort of protest at the onset of every game? None of this has anything to do with promoting social cohesion or unity — and its certainly far from admiring professional athleticism, the entire point of sports as a form of entertainment.
The real harm here is that, for decades sports had been considered the last place where Americans of different belief systems, ethnic backgrounds, and political priorities could kick back and enjoy the same form of entertainment. We can’t watch the same cable news programs anymore. We can’t even watch the same movies half of the time — because political messaging has infected those spaces too. Professional sports was resistant to this trend for a while — perhaps because the entire industry is predicated on meritocracy and fair competition. But even this once-revered institution is falling to cultural parasites bent on eradicating any semblance of Americanism as an ideal.
We don’t expect the NFL, the MLB, the NBA, or any other sports franchise to change course any time soon. These corporations will parrot whichever narrative keeps them out of leftist crosshairs. Instead, it’s incumbent upon Americans to disengage from these institutions — and form new ones. Unity in our current sports media may be long gone, but that will never take away from our desire to compete, relax, and take stock of what really matters.
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