Yet just like the expansion of his electoral base during the presidential campaign, Trump has gradually found a foothold in sport over the past year.
On Monday he welcomed the Florida Panthers ice hockey team to the White House in recognition of their National Hockey League championship victory last season.
A day later, the White House confirmed that Trump would become the first US president to attend the Super Bowl in person, joining around 74,000 other fans at Sunday’s showpiece between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles.
Amy Bass, a professor of sports studies at Manhattanville University in New York, says Trump’s decision to attend the Super Bowl is “political.”
“Even if he is going because he loves football … it is a political move because he is the president of the United States and everything he does is political,” Bass told AFP.
Some have interpreted the NFL’s decision to remove the words “End Racism” from the end zone at this weekend’s Super Bowl as a concession to the “anti-woke” stance of the new Trump administration.
However NFL chief Goodell insisted on Monday that the league remained firmly committed to diversity programs, despite the Trump administration’s calls for similar initiatives in government and elsewhere to be scrapped.
“We got into diversity efforts because we felt it was the right thing for the National Football League … we’ve proven to ourselves that it does make the NFL better,” Goodell said.
Players at Sunday’s Super Bowl have reacted positively to Trump’s attendance, with Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce calling it a “great honor.”
That could potentially lead to some awkwardness between Kelce and his pop icon girlfriend, Taylor Swift. Swift endorsed Trump’s election rival Kamala Harris last year, prompting Trump to write on social media: “I hate Taylor Swift.”
The Super Bowl’s high-profile halftime concert on Sunday could also be an opportunity for anti-Trump sentiment, with rapper Kendrick Lamar, who has been critical of the president in the past, headlining the show.
Bass wonders how fans at the Superdome might respond on Sunday, given the Eagles’ recent history with Trump following the 2018 row.
“Here’s the thing about using a stadium or a ball park as a political arena: you have absolutely no idea what the crowd is going to do, because you, the politician, are not why anyone is there,” Bass said.
“You’d be hard pressed to find a city that hates Donald Trump more than Philadelphia, so….might they be disrespectful? Yes. And that’s a shame. Because the office of the president deserves respect.
“But Donald Trump changed the rules on respect, so all’s fair.”
© 2025 AFP
