The Leftist Becomes A Sports Fan

The old stereotype imagines leftists as sports haters. Today, they all want to emphasize how much they love pro sports.

Knicksmania hit America like the plague this summer. The New York team with the most fair-weather fans captured the public imagination with their NBA championship run. Celebrities and regular Americans with zero connection to New York hopped on the Knicks bandwagon, forcing the rest of the country to pretend the Knicks were America’s team.

One group in particular, no matter where they lived, embraced the Knicks as part of their identity. Leftists across the country adopted the Knicks as their team. Chapo Trap House and other prominent lefty influencers eschewed politics to obsessively focus on the Knicks. Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong posted a video of her obnoxiously celebrating the Knicks’ victory. It made little sense for someone running for office in Wisconsin to promote her devotion to a New York team. But she made an ad showing her dancing after the win anyway.

Hong’s narcissism aside, her post indicates an important development. She claims a socialist governor can help Wisconsin’s own pro teams win championships. While a dubious claim, it reveals how leftists have come to embrace sports. They’re no longer unironically criticizing sportsball. They’re now devoted fans, regardless of how strange and un-jocklike they are. This comes at a time where pro sports stand as a divisive topic among ardent right-wingers and sports media pushes a woke message on an apathetic public.

The old stereotypes no longer make sense. Even blue-haired, trans communists watch the NFL every Sunday. It makes sense why. Pro sports teams often now reflect the values of the Left and offer an unproblematic identity for white leftists to latch onto.

It was once quite common for leftists to deride sports as “bread and circuses” and the new opiate of the masses. Leftists would congratulate themselves for being superior to the herd by refusing to follow sports. They allegedly focused on higher pursuits, like reading literature. A lot of this was obviously cope for not being athletic in high school, which naturally inspired their politics. Sports were for the brainless chuds who could never appreciate the sophisticated things in life.

Leftists at times provided ideological justification for sports hate. George Carlin famously contrasted baseball to football, with football being portrayed as overtly violent, militaristic, and authoritarian. At least Carlin liked baseball. The rant is one of the foremost examples of left-wing sports criticism. Pro sports are bad because they simulate wars, encourage jingoism, bamboozle the working class, exhibit toxic masculinity, present capitalism at its worst, and the stadiums resemble fascist rallies. The archetypal leftist wished for the masses to focus on something else besides sports. This entertainment made the people worse and prevented them from rising up against their capitalist overlords.

This gave conservatives easy fodder to contrast their all-American manhood with un-American, sports hating libtards. I remember several times as a kid when Fox News would bring on a hapless liberal to dare sully the greatness of sports, setting up an easy smackdown from Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity.

But that’s no longer the case. While the stereotype may have been a bit overstated in the past, it is remarkable how much hardcore leftists now LOVE pro sports. You’re far more likely to see rants about sports from right-wing commentators than from left-wing ones. It’s rare for a DSA type to go on an unironic tirade against sportsball.

Why this change? There are some rather mundane explanations. Some of it is just a matter of following their leaders. Their favorite podcasters and personalities are now massive sports fans and obsessively tweet about their favorite teams and important games.

The internet is obsessed with the jock-nerd dialectic. No one wants to look like the nerd. Everyone wants to be the jock. Naturally, this leads leftists to embrace sports as part of their assumed jock identity.

Another factor is that sports fandom is expanding beyond traditional demographics. It’s no longer just bros and working-class dudes devoted to watching their teams win. More women watch sports. Teams now go all out for Pride Nights to accommodate gay fans. There’s also a lot of rather nerdy guys following the games. Just look at the goofy Bengali who made the annoying “My mayor is Muslim…” rhyme for the Knicks. Leftists now fit in more.

Being sports fans can make the Left look “normal," which is something all political movements want to achieve. Leftists believe a jersey can obscure transgenderism and extreme anti-white hate and make them resemble everyday Americans.

These are the mundane reasons. But they alone don’t explain the phenomenon. There are not-so mundane reasons that explain the growth of leftist sports obsession.

A big one is that the sports world is much more left-wing than it was 20 years ago. It was once unthinkable that players would be forced to wear Pride attire and universally back black power. Now it’s the norm. Teams going all out for Black Lives Matter, LGBT causes, and other woke nonsense undermines any notion of being right-coded. With the exception of capitalism, most sports teams currently reflect the values of leftists. There’s no guilt rooting for any of these teams when they fly the Progress Flag and stencil BLM messages in the endzone.

This is further reinforced by sports media. While political and cultural media wield far less influence over their respective spheres, sports journos still lord over their dominion. They whip up controversy over players resisting Pride dictates, supporting Donald Trump, and not being sufficiently woke. They love to opine on politics, and their opinions are absolutely shitlib. A major reason why the NFL kept official BLM messaging and teams ostentatiously celebrate Pride Month is to avoid the wrath of sports journos.

Sports journos may also be responsible for the “teams in bio” libtard phenomenon. This is something separate, but related to leftist sports fans. These are normie guys and gals who post primarily about sports. They proudly list their favorite teams in their bio. For some reason, these types are the foot soldiers of normie libtardism. Expect them to swarm into your mentions if you criticize immigration, point out who commits crime in America, and say anti-white racism is real. They’ll act flabbergasted that anyone would believe these things in the year 2026. They’ll then offer the worst Daily Show takes imaginable on every possible issue. “Whites actually commit more crime than blacks!” “America was built by immigrants!” “It’s easier to get a gun than a pregnancy test!” And on and on.

These types aren’t really leftists. They’re far too normie to be into the DSA’s politics. They just represent extreme conformism. In another age, they may have been conservatives. Thanks to ESPN and Disney+, they’re libtards.

Sports also give white leftists an unproblematic identity. They don’t like nationalism, they’re skittish about religion (especially Christianity), and they certainly don’t like identifying with their race or ethnicity. The last category is only allowed for non-whites. So what’s left for a white guy to identify with? Sports teams. The Knicks replace your nation, religion, and race.
Anyone can be a Knicks fan. It also reinforces identification with your city, which is one of the other tolerable identities the Left allows. Strongly identifying with a city is left-coded in America. It’s not exclusive to leftists, of course. But they are more insistent on it than the Right, especially with many right-wingers viewing all cities as Sodom.

Sports teams offer a tribe and a community to white leftists. It’s something all humans crave. It transfers problematic, right-wing instincts into harmless cheerleading. The enemy isn’t some different ethnicity or nationality. It’s Spurs fans. Some leftists even argue this type of identity, which is directly tied to “actual living communities,” is more organic than that of nationalism. It’s a strange notion, but it does indicate some of the motivation for left-wing sports fandom.

Meanwhile, the Right fiercely debates whether they should even watch sports. Four years ago, I had “No NFL” as part of the Greerhead Pledge. It did not mean “No Sports.” But people assumed it was and it became the most controversial plank of the pledge–by far. I eventually came to terms with the NFL and took it out. Today, it probably wouldn’t generate as much backlash. There were numerous viral RW posts demanding no one watch the Super Bowl, complete with replacing the “foot” in football with the n-word.

The only thing keeping the Online Right from not fully turning on sports is the power of the jock-nerd dialectic. There’s an awareness that being anti-sport is “nerd-coded” and right-wingers, just like leftists, want to be seen as jocks. Thus, rightists try to keep the sportsball bashing in check.

This is completely absent on the Left. They unapologetically love sports. Player demographics thrill them rather than horrify them. The alternative identities to race, nation, and church are a plus rather than a negative. And the left-wing messages from official team accounts meet their approval.

There’s no reason for a leftist to hate pro sports anymore.

Scott’s new book, “Whitepill: The Online Right and the Making of Trump’s America,” is now available. Order your copy today.