President Donald Trump began his week by attending the NBA Finals, booed lustily by the New York crowd. He’s set to end it Sunday night being cheered at a UFC cage match outside the White House on his birthday.
No prior president has attended the NBA Finals nor hosted a UFC fight — let alone in the same seven-day span. But for Trump, the events are just the latest sports episodes in a presidency punctuated by football championships, golf tournaments and the Daytona 500.
The fans’ reaction, meantime, underscores how sports have become a partisan playing field, with football, golf, auto racing and UFC skewing Republican — and Trump repeatedly wrapping himself in those fans’ embrace.
By contrast, Trump did not attend the U.S. national team’s first game in the World Cup soccer tournament on Friday night. Polls have shown that fans of soccer, like basketball and tennis, skew toward Democrats.
“He should stick to the UFC,” Joe Rogan, a popular podcaster who supported Trump’s election but has criticized him more recently, said on his show after the president’s rough reception at the NBA Finals. “They’re going to boo him everywhere else.”
Trump has said he’s an avid fan of many sports — including the NBA and his hometown New York Knicks, who hosted Monday night’s game. He has extolled the UFC showcase as a one-of-a-kind event that will energize Americans and put on a spotlight on mixed-martial artists, whom Trump has called “the toughest people” in sports.
The president has spent months showing off a booklet prepared by the UFC to guests in the Oval Office, including New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, according to four people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private meetings.
“This would be the highest-rated event, maybe one of them ever in sports,” the president told his daughter-in-law Lara Trump on a recent podcast, as he gave her a tour of the UFC arena being built at the White House.
The White House defended Trump’s decision to attend and host the sporting events amid other priorities, including efforts to reach a peace deal with Iran.
“President Trump is the greatest champion for sports of any president in American history, and he loves them as the People’s President,” spokesperson Olivia Wales said in a statement, touting the upcoming UFC fight. “This will be one of the greatest sports events in history, and President Trump hosting it at the White House is a testament to his vision to celebrate America’s monumental 250th anniversary.”
While sports can bring people together, Trump’s events this week unified many against him.
Multiple surveys have found that Americans are more likely to disapprove of the president’s idea to stage a UFC fight, warning that it will harm the White House’s image. Just 16 percent of Americans said it was appropriate for Trump to host mixed-martial arts fights on the White House’s lawn, while 46 percent called it inappropriate, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted this month.
“It is clearly intended to push a power projection narrative, and to present a kind of a muscularity,” White House historian Edward Lengel said. “Ironically, I think instead it projects weakness, and it projects buffoonery.”
Many fans of the New York Knicks also didn’t want Trump in attendance at Monday night’s NBA Finals game, blaming the president for logistical hurdles that complicated fans’ ability to enter the arena — and creating a distraction that contributed to the team’s eventual defeat.
The Knicks have lost only one time in the past 51 days: the game that the president attended. The team is bidding for its first NBA title in 53 years.
Trump also spent several days feuding with Stephen A. Smith, one of the nation’s most prominent sports commentators, after Smith urged Trump not to attend the NBA Finals, warning that the spectacle would distract the hometown Knicks. The president hit back by insulting Smith’s intelligence in remarks and on social media posts, prompting the pundit to attack the president and his policies.
“[Aren’t] the American people suffering because inflation is pervasive in our lives while you, your family, and your cronies continue to profit?” Smith said in an extended segment on his SiriusXM show, “Straight Shooter with Stephen A.”
Some of Trump’s allies say he’s getting a raw deal from unhappy fans.
“I think he’s a great guy,” James Dolan, the Knicks’ owner, told a radio-show host this week, dismissing claims that Trump fell asleep during Monday night’s game.
Trump has also downplayed the criticism, including when reporters asked him about the reception at the NBA Finals.
“I think, mostly cheers. It was loud and it was very enthusiastic,” the president said.
Surveys conducted by The Washington Post and the University of Maryland across 2022 and 2023 illustrated the partisan divide among the fan bases of major sports.
While some of the most prominent football players, racecar drivers and golfers are public Trump supporters, many NBA stars, such as LeBron James, have criticized Trump and his policies.
Basketball also has been closely linked with Barack Obama, Trump’s predecessor in his first term, who hosted NBA players for games at the White House and issued predictions for the NCAA basketball tournament each year. When Obama attended a 2019 NBA Finals game in Toronto, the former president received sustained cheers and a standing ovation.
Meanwhile, NASCAR was the source of the “Let’s go, Brandon” chant and slogan that Republicans used to mock another of Trump’s predecessors, Joe Biden. The chant originated in an October 2021 interview between a reporter and NASCAR driver Brandon Brown, as the crowd chanted “F— Joe Biden.” The reporter instead interpreted the chant as “Let’s go Brandon,” sparking years of the GOP using the line as a coded reference.
Trump has signaled that more sporting events are in his future, having said he hopes to watch a World Cup match as the United States hosts its first tournament in more than three decades. The White House has also helped organize an IndyCar race through the streets of Washington set for later this year.
President Bill Clinton attended the first game the last time the United States hosted the World Cup in 1994, a match between Germany and Bolivia.
“The love of soccer is now a universal language that binds us all together,” Clinton said in a speech to more than 63,000 fans at Chicago’s Soldier Field, kicking off the tournament.
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