Let’s Normalize Being Apolitical in Sports

In 2018, Fox News commentator Laura Ingraham went viral for telling National Basketball Association star LeBron James to “Shut up and dribble,” reinvigorating a familiar debate: should athletes use their platforms to advocate for political change, or should they stick to sports? While Ingraham’s phrasing was undeniably brash, the underlying idea is worth considering: athletics are meant to bring people together, not push them further apart. 

Travel to any large U.S. city and you’ll find sports franchises followed with near-religious devotion. Teams serve as unifiers for most metro areas, sources of pride for everyday Americans, anchors that draw people downtown, and engines for local economies. Even in smaller towns or cities without major-league franchises, people gather bars and living rooms for their team alongside perfect strangers. I can personally attest to this; my hometown pubs were routinely packed for Detroit Lions games despite being more than two hours from the city.

However, if politics continue to seep into American sports, this sense of unity may not endure. 

Ask almost any American why they watch sports, and few would say it is to learn about the political beliefs of the players on the screen. People turn to athletics for entertainment and escape—to take their minds off of the burdens of daily life. When politics enters the arena, sports lose that function and become yet another source of stress and division.

A 2024 Sports Business Journal poll found that only 26 percent of respondents strongly or somewhat agreed that athletes should speak out on political issues. When athletes use their platforms for overt political commentary, they risk dividing once-cohesive fan bases and turning longtime supporters into disengaged viewers. 

The situation surrounding Aaron Rodgers illustrates this shift. Though never an uncontroversial figure, his 2021 decision to publicly take a conservative stance on COVID-19 and vaccine mandates reshaped his public image. He has since been voted the National Football League’s “Most Annoying Player” for the second year in a row by more than 3,000 fans across various fan bases, a reflection of how quickly political discourse can stain public perception.

Athletes on the other side of the political spectrum have faced similar backlash. Colin Kaepernick, LeBron James, among others, have drawn criticism for expressing more liberal beliefs. In Kaepernick’s case, his decision to kneel during the national anthem in 2016, intended as a protest against police brutality, earned him the NFL’s “Most Disliked Player” in 2016. 

Nike’s sponsorship of Kaepernick prompted a widespread conservative boycott of the brand, reportedly costing the company more than $4 billion in market capitalization. While Kaepernick’s introduction of politics into his sport was undoubtedly frustrating for some fans and affirming for others, it undeniably fueled national division and deepened disillusionment with the NFL. In response to the backlash, and the financial consequences that followed, NFL owners later unanimously voted to restrict on-field kneeling, underscoring how political activism has begun to shape the league itself.

This is not to say that athletes lack the right to express political views. Rather, given their platforms, they also bear a societal and financial responsibility to consider the consequences of doing so. Political expression in sports often alienates Americans by inserting partisan conflict into yet another shared sphere that once offered relief from it.

This is not a liberal-versus-conservative debate. It is a question of whether athletes should avoid turning athletic competition into a forum for general political discourse. 

On Jan. 18, Texans player Azeez Al-Shaair wore eye black before a game reading “stop the genocide,” criticizing the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza. Regardless of one’s view on the message itself, the football field is not the appropriate venue for such commentary. Fans are not watching the game to engage with a player’s stance on international conflict; they are watching to root for their team or simply to watch a good game.

Professional athletes are rarely qualified to meaningfully shape political opinion. While some are well-educated and articulate, athletic excellence does not grant expertise in public policy. It is unlikely that the factory worker who just finished their shift or the retired couple settling in for the Sunday game is turning on ESPN to hear football players analyze the state of American or global politics.

There is also a strong argument that political speech has a net-negative effect. In a recent “New Rule” segment of Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher argued that celebrity activism often does more harm than good: “Celebrities aren’t helping. And why would they? In a country where the big issue is now affordability, outside of, I don’t know, Springsteen and a few others, celebrities don’t strike people as relatable or in touch. And what their activism mostly activates is eye rolls because stars, they’re not just like us.”

Maher points to the 2024 election as a clear example. Despite an overwhelming number of celebrity endorsements, there was little evidence of meaningful electoral impact. “Every big name in show business came out for Kamala Harris, from Oprah to Clooney to Beyonce, and she lost every swing state.” Among those endorsements were prominent athletes such as LeBron James and Stephen Curry. Others, including Harrison Butler and Jake Paul, endorsed Donald Trump. But did any of these endorsements meaningfully change votes? 

It is understandable for public figures to believe their opinions might educate or influence others. In reality, however, Americans vote based on a complex mix of financial, moral, and social pressures. Against that backdrop, politics in sports is simply not worth the divisive cost, especially given its minimal tangible impact.

That said, my aversion to politics in sports does not mean confining athletes solely to their craft. Many athletes use their platform in far more constructive, charitable ways by supporting causes that directly improve people’s lives . Athletes are uniquely positioned to make a difference, and many already do so. Serena Williams, John Cena, and Cristiano Ronaldo are among the most charitable figures in sports, while James has supported significant educational initiatives. These efforts matter intrinsically more than any political endorsement or declaration of party loyalty.

Some may argue that athletes engage in political advocacy because they genuinely want to improve people’s lives. While that motivation is honorable, in practice, the result comes across not as effective advocacy, and more as a fruitless attempt to sway public opinion. Fans do not understand political messaging in sports as a vision of a better future, but rather as introducing politics into a realm conceived as an apolitical escape.

Athletics remains one of the last domains in which Americans of all backgrounds can come together and root for the same team, regardless of the outcome: win or lose, good or bad, big or small. In our current era characterized by unprecedented political polarization, let’s not make sports a home for this division. 

Kalvin Frank ’28 (kfrank@college.harvard.edu) wants sports to bring people together, not divide them.