President Trump has broken tradition on more than one occasion since taking office.
Some of the most notable traditions have been sports-based, like the long term tradition of throwing out the first pitch on MLB opening day and a more recent Obama tradition of filling out a NCAA basketball tournament bracket. This leads some to think the president doesn’t pay attention to sports as much as his predecessors, but that is wrong.
Trump does pay attention, just in a different way.
President Trump spoke in Alabama about kneeling NFL players and then later began a tirade on Twitter beginning on Sept. 22, 2017. Between that time and Nov. 27 he sent a total of 615 tweets, 56 of which were related to sports. Meaning, 9.1 percent of his tweets over that time about something that he seems less passionate about than his predecessor.
In the same time frame in 2016 then President Obama tweeted 142 times and exactly one tweet was about sports.
Does that mean that President Trump actually cares more about sports than his predecessor? No, there are plenty of people who are sports fans who don’t take to their social media accounts to get their opinion across. It d
oes show that Trump is passionate about sports, particularly football.
Of Trump’s 56 tweets, 38 of them were about football.
None of his tweets are about a particular team that he likes, but instead are about what he doesn’t like about the league. In particular, he is passionate about players kneeling for the National Anthem. He’s tweeted about specific players, such as Oakland Raider Marshawn Lynch, but overall he just wants the players he watches to support the flag.
Some may say it has nothing to do with sports and he’s just using it as a platform for his politics, but he’s not alone in the sports world.
All over Twitter there are sports fans who echo Trump’s sentiment. Articles from CBS Sports, the Sporting News and USA Today all show that there are fans who feel the same way.
The NFL is not the only target for his outrage. He also tweeted about the Golden State Warriors not wanting to come to the White House and LaVar Ball’s disrespect, both things sections of fans were also upset about.
Rage isn’t Trump’s only emotion. He tweeted positively about the NHL, NASCAR and other sports as well, but his angry tweets far outweigh his positive ones.
The research shows that Trump is a sports fan, just not the same kind of fan as President Obama. Obama is a smart fan who knows his stuff, and doesn’t feel the need to show off on Twitter, but Trump is the angry fan who likely screams at the television in his house alone before tweeting his outrage.
Both are types of fans, one is just different than the other.
