President Trump has a message for professional and college athletes contemplating whether to suit up amid the coronavirus: Play ball — but only after the closing lines of the “Star-Spangled Banner.”
“So, college football, get out there and play football. People want to see it. And stand for your American flag, stand for your national anthem, because people are not happy when that doesn’t happen,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. “You look at the NBA and what’s happening with the NBA and their poor ratings. I don’t know; can’t imagine why. But they didn’t stand, they didn’t show respect to our flag.”
When it comes to the resumption of college and professional sports, Trump has an ostensible conflict between normalcy — one GOP operative said that “Make America normal again” would be his best possible reelection campaign slogan — and the national anthem.
“The NFL had its problems, two years ago, when that happened. They went way down in their ratings and their fans, and they struggled back,” Trump said of the national anthem protests, which had dissipated but resumed following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody. Despite his continued public advocacy for the return of sports as a sign that the pandemic is under control, Trump told Fox Sports that he wasn’t interested in seeing professional football if people knelt during the national anthem.
“Well, they want to open, and they want to open badly, and they’ve been working with government,” Trump said of the NFL. “And I would say this, if they don’t stand for the national anthem, I hope they don’t open. But other than that, I want to see them open, and we’re doing everything possible for getting them open, and they can protest in other ways. They shouldn’t protest our flag or our country.”
Trump also told Hugh Hewitt on Tuesday that he would rather consult New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick than most generals if he had a battle to win. The White House has echoed Trump’s message on the importance of sports. The president, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters on Monday, would “very much would like to see college football safely resume their sport.”
“And, as he mentioned in that tweet, a lot of these college athletes, you know, work their whole lives to get, you know, four years — sometimes they’re redshirted an extra year if they’re lucky,” she said. “They work their whole lives for this moment, and he’d like to see them have a chance to live out their dreams.”
Trump celebrated major league baseball’s opening day on the White House lawn with Little Leaguers and former New York Yankees pitcher Mariano Rivera, though plans to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a game this month were postponed.
“I want fans back in the arenas,” Trump said back in April. “By whenever they’re ready, as soon as we can. And fans want to be back, too.”
But in 2018, Trump said he wanted to see athletes who engaged in national anthem protests punished. He told rallygoers in Alabama, “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when someone disrespects our flag, say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out. He’s fired. He’s fired.'” Some players kneel during the anthem or the Pledge of Allegiance to protest racial injustice in America. The Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft and the team’s then quarterback Tom Brady, both friends of Trump’s, criticized his statements as divisive.
Still, many see no contradiction between wanting to watch professional sports and avoid political controversy at the same time. Conservative commentator Laura Ingraham’s Shut Up And Sing has become to some fans “Shut up and dribble.”
“From LeBron’s hypocrisy on China to woke slogans on the back of NBA jerseys to kneeling during the national anthem, Americans, by and large, prefer to keep their politics and sports separate irrespective of their political leanings,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist. “These are trying times. We are in the midst of a global pandemic, and sports, whether professional or amateur, are a form of escapism from the hard realities we face. So, President Trump is saying what many, even those who disagree with him politically, are thinking, ‘play ball,’ but please leave the politics in the locker room.”
Professional baseball, basketball, and hockey have already resumed, while football teams have begun training camp. But major college football programs have already been postponed.
