General Fans Want Games To Be An Escape, A Point Mike Florio Missed In 'Stick To Sports' Rant | Bobby Burack

ProFootballTalk blogger Mike Florio posted a headline this week about Jets owner Woody Johnson supporting Donald Trump during his bid for the White House. 

"Johnson was spotted behind Trump during his victory speech on Saturday night, after winning the South Carolina Republican primary," wrote Florio.

The premise of the article was to try and point out hypocrisy among conservative sports fans. 

"To those who would tell players and media who might not agree with their political views to stick to sports, the door should swing both ways. It often does not," said Florio.

Concluding, "And that’s how it goes for folks of a certain ideology. They have no problem with talking about something other than football when they have something they want to say, or when someone is saying something they want to hear."

Florio's subtle jabs fell short.

It was indeed the more conservative-leaning fans and journalists who frequented the phrase "stick to sports." But let's review what they were referencing:

On-field and on-court demonstrations.

Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players knelt during the national anthem on television before the start of a football game. As did NBA players. 

The NBA wrote "Black Lives Matter" on the court in 2020, supporting an organization that came out in favor of the savagery of Jews in Israel.  

There's a distinct difference between advocating a political view during a sporting event and during one's private time, as Johnson does with his support of Donald Trump.

"The inability of people in sports to distinguish between political endorsements in uniform at work and in their private lives is crazy," Clay Travis posted on X in response to Florio's article. 

"A UPS driver shouldn’t deliver packages in a MAGA hat at work. A UPS driver out of work can show up at any rally he wants."

Likewise, no honest person would raise a fuss if an NFL owner supported Biden during his off time. And Mike Florio certainly would not make a headline about it. 

In actuality, "stick to sports" is more about the fans than one side of the political aisle. Mixing a political stance with a professional sports league naturally appalls the side of the aisle in opposition to said stance. 

Ratings for the NFL dropped around 20 percent between 2015 and 2017 when players protested the anthem. The NBA Finals dropped over 50 percent in 2020 when the league universally supported BLM (Covid delaying the Finals until the fall was also a factor). 

A YouGov / Yahoo News poll found that nearly half of the country changed its sports viewing habits due to "political and social messaging" between 2016 and 2020. 

Sports are, inherently, an escape for both the left and the right. And when you take that away from either side, they revolt. 

As I wrote in January, "There are places for politically influenced sports coverage. There are niches of fans who want their sports mixed with politics. But the consensus does not."

The UFC and WNBA might be those niches for the right and left, respectively.  

But the NFL and NBA are not niches. They are the two most mainstream sports products in the nation. They are most successful when their products appeal to the widest net of sports fans.

Sports fans, not conservatives, are the loudest proponents of "stick to sports." 

Mike Florio knows that. He's not a dolt. He's pandering.