Can the NBA Cup Help Revive Lagging Viewership?
In February 2015, four months before he rode an escalator down to the lobby of Trump Tower and entered the 2016 presidential race, I interviewed Donald Trump by phone for Fortune about the state of the golf business.
On the call, Trump touted his 15 golf courses (“I have the very best courses in the best places”), said golf is still the sport of business (“I’ve made deals on a golf course that I would have never, ever made over a lunch”) and said of the efforts to grow the game and attract new participants, “I feel golf should be an aspirational game, something people aspire to. … Let golf be elitist. … Let people work hard and aspire to someday be able to play golf. To afford to play it. They’re trying to teach golf to people who will never be able to really play it.”
At the time, my editors and I thought those remarks were controversial. (How cute.)
After Trump’s comments about Mexican immigrants, following that trip down the escalator in June 2015 (“They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists”), ESPN pulled its ESPY Celebrity Golf Classic from a Trump course, the PGA of America pulled its Grand Slam of Golf from a Trump course, and the LPGA released a statement saying it would have pulled its Ricoh Women’s British Open from a Trump course if it had more time. The powers that be in golf appeared wary of mixing sports with politics.
That notion is long since dead, or should be. You cannot “stick to sports” when the president of the United States has deep ties to sports, and you cannot separate President Trump from his sports ties. (Remember Fox News host Laura Ingraham telling LeBron James to “shut up and dribble” in 2018? No moment was more effective in compelling athletes to do the exact opposite.)
In the second Trump presidency, I expect lots of sports dealmaking, and I expect sports to get more political again. American sports leagues should buckle up.
Trump made golf a sticking point throughout the 2024 campaign. He mocked Joe Biden’s golf prowess (“He can’t hit a ball 50 yards. … That’s the biggest lie of all, that he’s a 6 handicap”) and Mark Cuban’s (“low clubhead speed, a total non-athlete”). When he took the stage in Florida on election night to celebrate his win, Bryson DeChambeau was onstage with him. (So was UFC boss Dana White.)
His sway in golf is so strong that Rory McIlroy’s immediate response on Wednesday after the election was to predict Trump could get a deal done between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf, a situation so fractious and geopolitically fraught that nearly 18 months have passed since the two announced an initial “framework agreement” to “reunify” men’s golf. Trump himself said on sportscaster Jim Gray’s podcast the day before the election, “It would take me the better part of 15 minutes to get that deal done.”
McIlroy’s reasoning was “obviously Trump has a great relationship with Saudi Arabia.” It’s a lot deeper than that: His son-in-law Jared Kushner spent the first Trump administration courting Saudi Arabia, then took a $2 billion investment from the Saudi wealth fund for his private equity firm after leaving the White House.
On the PGA Tour–LIV topic, Trump cautioned, “We have much bigger problems than that,” and McIlroy also hedged his comments: “As the president of the United States again, he’s probably got bigger things to focus on than golf.” I wouldn’t be so sure.
Then there’s the NFL, which has largely escaped Trump’s gaze (surely to the league’s relief) since he left office, after three years of tweets from the president excoriating the league for allowing the Colin Kaepernick–led kneeling protests. He did make time to post on Truth Social in September, “I can’t believe the NFL is effectively getting rid of the always exciting Kick Off Return. Such an exciting part of football. What are they doing? BEGINNING OF THE END!” He again railed about the new kickoff rules at a campaign rally this month.
NFL Enmity
As a reminder of the history here: Trump tried and failed to buy the Baltimore Colts from Robert Irsay in 1981. In 1983, he bought a USFL team, the New Jersey Generals, and in 1986, along with other USFL owners, sued the NFL for $567 million over its monopoly of fall television rights; the trial found in favor of the USFL but awarded damages of $1. He tried and failed to buy the Buffalo Bills in 2014 after Ralph Wilson died, and instead the team went to the Pegulas. Trump tweeted in October 2014: “Wow. @nfl ratings are down big league. Glad I didn’t get the Bills. Rather be lucky than good.”
Think he’ll have anything else to say about the NFL over the next four years? I do.
Over the course of Trump’s first presidency, the tradition of sports team White House visits got complicated. Some championship teams were invited to the White House and visited (including the 2016 Clemson football team and the 2017 Houston Astros), some were invited and declined (including the 2016 UNC men’s basketball team), and many were simply not invited (including the 2017 Minnesota Lynx; “That has certainly been disappointing,” head coach Cheryl Reeve said at the time). Think WNBA championship teams will visit the second Trump White House if invited?
In college sports, Trump’s presidency and Tuesday’s red wave could have a very real and direct impact on the lives of college athletes. The Republican-led Senate is more likely to push legislation that ensures college athletes cannot be treated as employees and also gives the NCAA an antitrust carve-out. Texas senator Ted Cruz will likely chair the Senate Commerce Committee, and he’s been supportive of most of the NCAA’s requests.
Meanwhile, the pro sports team owners who donated to Trump this cycle include the owners of the Dallas Mavericks, Houston Rockets, New York Jets, Tennessee Titans, Texas Rangers, Chicago Cubs, and Vegas Golden Knights. What will those donors expect from Trump in return?
There’s a long list of sports figures in Trump’s orbit who are in the mix for his cabinet or ambassador positions.
His newly named chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is the daughter of NFL broadcaster Pat Summerall. Former WWE CEO Linda McMahon was Trump’s Small Business Administration head and will chair his transition team. New York Jets owner Woody Johnson was Trump’s ambassador to the U.K. for nearly his entire presidency (his brother Chris took over the team during that time) and could certainly return to an official post. Herschel Walker, Trump’s best player during his time as a USFL owner, was his handpicked candidate for the Georgia senate in 2020 (he lost), then campaigned with him this year. Trump has said, jokingly or not, that he would put Walker in charge of a U.S. missile defense system.
That’s just a few of the many sports individuals and entities that will be watching very closely when Trump moves back to the White House. He’ll still be there for the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the U.S., and the 2028 Summer Olympics in L.A.
