Analysis: Biden mostly left sports issues to Congress. Trump's return will change that

WASHINGTON — There were no trays of cheeseburgers and other fast-food items stacked on a table at the White House on Thursday as President Joe Biden welcomed the reigning NBA champion Boston Celtics. That could soon change, however, with the return of Donald Trump.

It was less than six years ago, in January 2019, when that surreal scene greeted the college football champion Clemson Tigers in the executive mansion’s ornate State Dining Room. Trump, still in his overcoat after returning from a day trip, welcomed the squad with a spread of McDonald’s and Wendy’s delicacies on silver platters that the White House said he personally paid for — as a portrait of a pensive-looking Abraham Lincoln hung in the center of the room.

One longtime political observer could not stop laughing when asked last week about some of Trump’s Cabinet and senior staff picks, before contending: “The country’s getting what it signed up for.” That, in part, would be the return of an avid sports fan who has not been afraid to weigh in on or directly influence sporting matters.

Alabama GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who noted he has “played a lot of golf” with the president-elect, said there was “not a bigger supporter of sports than President Trump.”

“I think he’s gonna be very hands-on,” the former college football coach said, but with a caveat: “But you’ve got to look at … all the things that he’s got to do — his first 100 days are going to be packed.”

Trump, as he did in the first term, will likely not be shy about making political hay out of sports moments and issues that become broader cultural matters, as he did with athletes kneeling during the national anthem and, more recently, calling for the NFL to change its new kickoff rule, which is designed for player safety. But he will likely also have a role to play on several topics that could be on lawmakers’ radar come January.

“In the second Trump presidency, I expect lots of sports dealmaking, and I expect sports to get more political again,” Daniel Roberts, editor in chief of Front Office Sports, a business-focused newsletter, wrote earlier this month. “American sports leagues should buckle up.”

“You cannot ‘stick to sports’ when the president of the United States has deep ties to sports,” Roberts added, “and you cannot separate President Trump from his sports ties.”

The possible list of issues includes a House-passed measure that would give the Washington, D.C., government control of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium site. If the Senate does not send that measure to Biden’s desk before Jan. 20, both chambers could take it up again in the new Congress, giving Trump, a big football fan, a big say in the stadium’s fate next year. (The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee sent the House version of the legislation, without amendments, to the chamber floor in a 17-2 vote earlier this week.)

Lawmakers from both parties have for two years expressed concerns about a potential professional golf merger between the U.S.-based PGA Tour and the Saudi-owned LIV Golf. Outside of holding a few hearings, members have not yet found the right clubs in the legislative bag that might give them a collective say over the slow-moving merger talks.

Would avid golfer Trump be too focused on other things during his first few months in office? “I wouldn’t be so sure,” Roberts quipped in his opinion piece. After all, Trump has hosted several LIV tournaments at his Florida and New Jersey golf clubs. And about the PGA-LIV merger talks, he recently told sportscaster Jim Gray and NFL coaching legend Bill Belichick on the “Let’s Go!” podcast that “it would take me the better part of 15 minutes to get that deal done.”

One Democratic Senate Judiciary member who has been against the proposed merger had a warning for Trump: “I don’t think a president should be involved in any private business deal,” Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal said Thursday.

“The question is whether the Saudis would use it to ‘sports-wash’ its image,” he said, referring to a term for the usage of sports by governments and other entities to improve their global reputations. In June 2023, Blumenthal called the joining of the American-based and Saudi-funded golf leagues a “national security threat,” saying he was “extremely worried” about it.

But Tuberville said he is confident that Trump “wants to be the intermediary to do it,” adding: “ He’d be the perfect one to do that deal.”

Tuberville also dropped another potential sports issue on the president-elect’s list: college football conferences allowing players to be compensated for use of their name, image and likeness, or NIL, for short.

“We’ve got to do something for college football, with all this NIL,” the Alabama Republican said. “We’ve got to do something for college sports.”

A Thursday throwback

As was the case Thursday under a setting autumn sun on a crisp late-November afternoon, Biden has opted to keep such White House sports celebrations much more mundane. Or, rather, a lot more by-the-protocol-book and in keeping with decades of pre-Trumpian tradition.

Jazz tunes played on the South Lawn as invited guests and White House aides held cups of a warm beverage to keep their hands warm. Biden touted the Celtics’ rich championship history and dropped a self-deprecating joke about his own age.

As Massachusetts lawmakers and other bigwigs looked on, the celebratory event was brief and highly scripted, as reporters whispered to each other about how such low-key episodes might soon give way for Trump-focused spectacles once again.

Trump’s forays into sports have not always paid off. Take his attempt in November 2019 to convince Louisiana State University college football fans to back the Republican candidate in that month’s gubernatorial election.

At a rally in Monroe, Trump had touted his upcoming appearance at a game between LSU and the University of Alabama: “I’m a football fan. I hear you have a great quarterback. We’re going to see him,” he said of Joe Burrow, then the star quarterback of the second-ranked Tigers. “But I’m actually going to the game. I said: ‘That’s the game I want to go to.’”

“Two great teams, two great teams that I look forward to,” Trump said to cheers from the pro-LSU crowd, who booed each time the No. 3 Crimson Tide was mentioned. He then touted the GOP businessman challenging the incumbent Democratic governor:: “So, I came to get you for early voting for Eddie Rispone.”

A month earlier, Republican candidates had combined for a majority of the vote in the first round of voting in the gubernatorial jungle primary. But Rispone went on to lose to Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, in the runoff.

Not that such a setback is likely to deter the incoming sports fan in chief.

“Sports, that’s a big part of our country and our culture,” Tuberville said. “I mean, the Olympics, they’re coming here during his [second] term, right? And the World Cup will be here, right? All of that is coming. Obviously, he’s got a lot of other things to do, but I hope he will get involved.”