For Trump, sporting events, figures boost bid
UFC matches helping him connect with ‘regular people’
NEW YORK — After Donald Trump attended South Carolina’s annual Palmetto Bowl, video of the crowd chanting “We want Trump!” as the former president arrived at Williams-Brice Stadium spread across conservative social media.
It was much the same two weeks earlier, when the GOP front-runner attended an Ultimate Fighting Championship event in New York, fist-bumping and waving to the crowd as he entered Madison Square Garden like he was one of the fighters, with an entourage that included the musician Kid Rock, UFC President Dana White and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
While Trump has spent less time campaigning in early voting states than many of his primary rivals, his campaign has been filling his schedule with appearances at major sporting events, including Saturday’s UFC fight in Las Vegas. Videos of his appearances routinely rack up hundreds of thousands of views across social media, particularly on nonpolitical outlets, including popular online sports channels and fan sites. And they are far easier and cheaper to produce than campaign rallies.
It’s a strategy that, aides say, puts him in front of potential voters who may not closely follow politics or engage with traditional news sources. And it is part of a broader effort to expand Trump’s appeal with young people and minority voters, particularly Latino and Black men, that the campaign hopes to win over in greater numbers after gains in 2020. UFC’s fan base in particular is overwhelmingly male.
Aides stress that Trump is a genuine sports fan who frequented fights and games long before he ran for the White House and would be attending even if he weren’t running. He is a particular aficionado of boxing and other combat sports. During a summer appearance on the “UFC Unfiltered” podcast, Trump recalled his favorite fights from decades ago, blow by blow.
In the 1980s, he befriended boxing legends like Mike Tyson and promoter Don King as he hosted high-profile fights at his Atlantic City casinos and became so involved with professional wrestling that he starred in WrestleMania 23’s “Battle of the Billionaires.” And, for a time, he owned the New Jersey Generals, a professional football team that played in the NFL-rival United States Football League.
In recent years, he has become particularly tied to mixed martial arts and its machismo. He is close personal friends with White, UFC’s founder, who spoke at the Republican National Conventions in 2016 and 2020 and credits Trump for saving the sport by hosting fights when others shunned it as too violent.
There is, of course, a long history of sports in presidential politics. Candidates have used them to project an image of strength and vigor, endear themselves to voters and seem more accessible.
Presidential historian Michael Beschloss wrote about how Theodore Roosevelt was frequently pictured boxing, horseback riding and hiking, while John Kennedy swam, sailed and played touch football despite serious injuries suffered during the war. Richard Nixon “went to great lengths” to emphasize his football and baseball fandom as he tried to court working-class voters, while George W. Bush threw out the ceremonial first pitch of the first World Series game in New York after 9/11, trying to signal to nervous Americans that life would go on after the terror attack.
Trump’s team sees the appearances as a way to connect with sports fans, signaling that he shares their interests, and a way to showcase a different side of the combative politician, who has been indicted four times and is usually shown on the news railing from behind a rally lectern. They also hope to capitalize on his history as a celebrity and his relationships with business and entertainment figures.
Jeffrey Montez de Oca, a professor of sociology and the founding director of the Center for Critical Sport Studies at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, said politicians “use sports all the time and they’re used to connect with regular people,” as well as to “project strength and power.”
Sports, he said, generate “powerful emotions” that take hold of fans and “make you feel like you’re a part of something much larger than yourself ” — emotions that politicians try to harness.
“For Trump to walk into that space, he’s able to participate in the general feeling going on in that room. The love, the enthusiasm, the feeling of connection with the sport, with the athletes, then attaches to him as well,” he said.
Kyle Kusz, a University of Rhode Island professor who studies the connection between sports and the far right, recalled how Trump aligned himself with sports figures in his 2016 campaign, appearing with basketball coach Bob Knight, who was fired for abusive behavior, and invoking Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, who was fired in connection with the child sex abuse scandal involving his then-assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. He noted that all were white men whose die-hard fans saw them as unfairly victimized.