ESPN’s “MegaCast” offered viewers 11 different ways to watch the national championship between Ohio State and Notre Dame. But to some, the most eye-popping moment came when President Donald J. Trump appeared on their screens to tout a “golden age of America”—while wishing both schools good luck.

Many viewers cringed at ESPN seemingly bending the knee toward the U.S. president who famously ripped the network (as well as former anchor Jemele Hill) during his first term in office from 2017 to 2021.  

“Whyyyy did @espn give Trump airtime during the National Championship Game???  WTF WAS THAT???” wrote one outraged viewer on X/Twitter. Added another: “It’s official. ESPN is an abbreviation for Eagerly Serving Pathological Narcissists. Showing that 90-second ad from Donald Trump was some serious 1984 stuff.” 

After being roundly criticized for not airing the pregame moment of silence and national anthem at the Sugar Bowl following the terror attack in New Orleans, ESPN made sure it did so in Atlanta on Monday night.

My sources tell me Trump recorded the message Monday afternoon, between his inauguration ceremony in the morning and the game’s 7:30 p.m. ET kickoff. In a statement, ESPN defended itself by noting U.S. presidents frequently appear during big sporting events. 

“With Donald Trump’s Inauguration occurring on the day of the CFP National Championship, it makes sense to include a message from the President, a practice that occurs regularly during major sporting events—including earlier this month from President [Joe] Biden before the Sugar Bowl,” an ESPN spokesperson said Monday night.

Trump returns to office at the apex of his political powers. He, his appointees, and elected Republicans control the presidency, the executive branch, Congress, and the U.S. Supreme Court. Given his immediate purge of 1,000 Biden appointees, Trump will not waste time settling old scores and picking new fights.

Legacy sports media giants like ESPN owner Disney, Comcast, Paramount, and Fox don’t want to engage in a culture war with the president. He’s got too much regulatory power over their interests, their mergers, their business futures—and a Roman emperor–like willingness to reward his friends and punish his enemies.

The tech giants don’t want to challenge him either. If you watched Monday’s inauguration ceremony, you saw Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and Tim Cook of Apple lining up to kiss the ring. On Monday, we saw billionaire Larry Ellison join Trump at the White House. Yes, that’s the same Ellison who bankrolled the deal to flip top recruit Bryce Underwood to Michigan from LSU because his wife, Jolin Zhu, is an alum. These tech oligarchs are rushing headlong into sports, forging deals with the NFL, NBA, MLB, and MLS. They’re eager to get on Trump’s good side, not antagonize him.

Meanwhile, sports personalities are not afraid of being canceled for supporting Trump anymore. Everybody from UFC boss Dana White, Conor McGregor, and Mike Tyson to Jon Jones and Jake and Logan Paul made the scene at his second inauguration Monday. 

Even the mighty NFL is taking a diplomatic approach. Shortly after taking office in 2017, Trump blasted the country’s richest, most powerful sports league for allowing its players to follow the example of Colin Kaepernick by protesting for racial and social justice. “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out!’” declared Trump. “He’s fired. He’s fired!’”

Four years later, the vibe is completely different. Kneeling during the anthem as Kaepernick did rarely happens now, but several NFL players mimicked the “Trump Dance” during games this season. Some thought the league would ban the Trump-inspired shimmy performed by players like Brock Bowers of the Raiders and Calvin Ridley of the Titans.  Instead, the league said it was A-OK. 

“There’s no issue with a celebratory dance,” league spokesman Brian McCarthy [no relation] told FOS. As for whether the NFL’s TV partners should cover the dances, McCarthy said: “It’s up to the networks to cover them as they see fit.”

As Winston Churchill said, “You cannot reason with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.” Look for sports leagues and media companies to mind their own business—and stick to sports—while Trump runs the show.

If you scanned social media Monday in advance of the CFP national championship game, there were probably more remarks about how the game had no buzz than there were comments about the actual game itself.

Among the NFL playoffs, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the presidential inauguration, the hype leading up to the national title game got comparatively swallowed up. 

Another common refrain was why the game had to be on a Monday as opposed to the weekend. The simple answer for this? The Shield.

The NFL effectively takes up every relevant weekend window from mid-December through mid-January. College football is popular with Americans, but it’s not the NFL, and competing with the league is not a viable option.

The first round of the CFP was on a weekend when two of the four games were head-to-head with the NFL. Penn State vs. SMU and Clemson vs. Texas drew 6.4 million and 8.6 million viewers, respectively. The NFL games in those windows, Texans-Chiefs and Steelers-Ravens, averaged 15.5 million viewers. In windows not up against the NFL, Tennessee–Ohio State drew 14.3 million viewers, and the night before Indiana–Notre Dame averaged 13.4 million.

ESPN has proved it can draw football viewers Monday nights, with Monday Night Football, a college football showcase on Labor Day, and past national title games as strong evidence of its success. The Monday time slot also gives the CFP title game the opportunity to have festivities throughout the weekend for visiting fans. 

The other recurring criticism on social media is that the CFP drags on far too long. 

Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt tweeted his displeasure with the format Monday, saying, “The mismanagement of CFB has been egregious.” He suggested moving up the national championship to Jan. 1. 

OutKick founder Clay Travis said the semis should be played Jan. 1 instead of the second week of January. “In order to make that happen you have to adjust the schedule. Either drop the conference title games and use that week for the playoffs—I’d do that and expand to 14 or 16 teams personally—or you have to start the season a week or so earlier to make the schedule work,” Travis told Front Office Sports. 

On Sports Media Watch, site founder Jon Lewis made the case for moving the national championship game from Monday to Friday. While he noted Monday nights traditionally have more TV viewers than Fridays, he argued the Ohio State–Miami BCS national title game in 2003 drew a massive audience on a Friday night and reasoned it could be worthwhile to shorten the 10- or 11-day window between the semifinals and the championship.