Abstract
The rise of Donald Trump has widely been seen as concurrent to the emergence of the “Alt-Right” that coalesces around intersecting themes of conservativism: White ethno-nationalist “race realism,” populism, misogyny, evangelical theocracy, border protectionism, and anti-liberalism. Media has been a key site of struggle in these developments, with attacks on mainstream media bringing into focus wider questions of truth and legitimacy in journalism. In particular, Trump’s rise has been synonymous with the heightened profile of the Breitbart News website, a purveyor of hyperpartisan, conservative political ideologies. In this article, we consider the place of Breitbart Sports within this dynamic political and media order. Our analysis of the lead-up to the 2016 Presidential election reveals the extent to which Breitbart Sports conveyed a vision of U.S. sport that promoted hard-right agendas in relation to U.S. global stewardship, veiled “race” reclamation discourses, media, immigration, social criticism, policing, sexual politics, and party politics. Breitbart Sports framing casts sport as a liberally infested cultural battleground, where conservativism is under threat. We conclude with a brief discussion about the role of new media in framing political exigencies and the role of sport in contemporary American society.
The rise to prominence and election of Donald Trump in late 2016 was both characterized by, and was a materialization of, broader shifts in the U.S. political landscape. These included the emergence of populist politics, heightened skepticism of the political and media “mainstream,” vitriolic and hostile terms of public debate, and the heightened significance of new media presences. Both the mobilization of and attacks on media became a key feature of the paroxysmal politicking. As Benkler, Faris, Roberts, and Zuckerman (2017) note, the lead-up to Trump’s 2016 election victory was characterized by the presence of a “right-wing media network anchored around Breitbart [which] developed as a distinct and insulated media system, using social media as a backbone to transmit a hyperpartisan perspective to the world” (p. 1). This hyperpartisan media, Benkler et al. (2017) continue, “appears to have influenced the broader media agenda” (p. 1). Electioneering included attacks on mainstream media as “fake news.” Hyperpartisan right-wing media presented a counterposition to the apparent “socialism” of the Democrats, a perceived receding American geopolitical presence, a pronounced corporatist antiestablishment, and critique of “political correctness.” Marwick and Lewis (2017) contend that the effect of such hyperpartisan outlets on the media sphere was to shift the “Overton window”, 1 thus altering the range of what is seen as politically acceptable (see also Benkler, Faris, Roberts, & Zuckerman, 2017). Such developments bring into focus wider questions of truth and legitimacy in journalism and signal media as a battleground amidst concerns of manipulation and disinformation within the political present.
One feature of the election campaign was the emergence of the alternative-right or Alt-right—a largely Internet-based presence—into popular awareness. 2 The alt-right coalesced around Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign in part due to his willingness to be aggressive, “unfiltered,” and to openly display hostility toward immigration, his attacks on mainstream press, and his support for hard-right-wing policies on civil liberties, national borders, and the environment. This coalition was perhaps best catalyzed through content featured on the Breitbart News website, founded in 2007. Trump gave repeated interviews to the site in the run-up to the election, driving its traffic to a 124% spike in 2016. Such has been the rise of Breitbart that it now ranks as the 50th most popular website in the United States (Alexa, 2017). Whilst Trump himself stated he did not understand what the alt-right is—and even condemned the movement in a New York Times interview (Shear, Hirschfeld Davis, & Habermannov, 2016)—Breitbart writers such as Milo Yiannopolous adopted Trump as a figurehead. To understand his rise—as Reid Ross (2017) urges—we must look beyond the demagogue and understand what Ahmed (2004) terms the “affective economy of fear” (p. 122). That is, we need to explore habits and patterned behaviors as they circulate within everyday life.
In this article, we consider the role of mediated sport within this shifting political and media terrain. Whilst sport was largely a byline in the vitriolic electioneering, 3 it is not insignificant in the contested context of U.S. cultural life and its new media and political currents. We focus on political mediations presented in Breitbart Sports. Launched in 2013, the online sports news site presents commentary targeting the site’s mainly U.S.-based readership. In launching Breitbart Sports, editors cited the “central nature of sports in and to American culture” (“Breitbart Sports Launches New Year’s Day 2013,” 2013) a clear indication that sport is seen as a crucial element of U.S. culture within Breitbart’s purview. By means of method, following King (2005) and McDonald and Birrell (1999), we seek to “read sport critically” by interrogating the representation of sport as both constitutive of, and situated within, the agendas of race-based nationalism, cultural politics, and nationalist economics of “Trump’s America.”
We first contextualize the emergence of the alt-right, and Breitbart’s entanglement in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. After brief comments regarding method, we present an analysis of Breitbart Sports coverage between December 2014 and November 2016—the 20-month period immediately prior to the presidential election. Finally, we summarize this analysis and in so doing note challenges for critical media/communications scholars going forward.
HyperPartisan Media, the Alt-Right, and Sport as Cultural Battleground
The alt-right first gained mainstream attention through its support of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign (Lyons, 2017). It was highlighted by Hillary Clinton in an August 2016 campaign speech, where she denounced the movement, yet inadvertently cemented it as a political presence (see Marwick & Lewis, 2017). Whilst far from a coherent, singular entity, and with no centralized or founding ideology or organizational platform, the alt-right is a loosely aligned movement coalescing and sharing tactics around varied themes (see Burley, 2017; Hawley, 2017; Lyons et al., 2017; Reid Ross, 2017). These include the primacy of “Western civilization” and/or “Christian” values (seen as synonymous with White identities) as a form of “ethno-nationalism”; hostility toward mainstream “liberal” elites in politics, academia, and media that are seen as purveyors of feminist, multicultural, and postmodernist ideas; a rejection of mainstream political neoconservativism in favor of nationalist protectionism, including criticism of immigration; advancement of, conservative values and practices into the public sector; right-wing libertarianism; promotion of liberal gun ownership laws; race realism (i.e., pseudo-intellectual racism and anti-Semitism), conspiracy theories, and “neoreactionary” rejections of egalitarianism. In this regard, it favors sociobiology, positivist social science, and genetics for insight into human behavior.
A mostly U.S.-based movement, 4 the alt-right exists almost exclusively online characterized by blogs, YouTube channels, forums, podcasts, twitter personalities, talking heads, memes, and aggressive trolling campaigns. Key figures include Richard Spencer, Jared Taylor, Paul Joseph Watson, Kevin McDonald, and Mike Cernovich and websites including Fash the Nation, Daily Stormer, The Daily Shoah, and The Right Stuff. Whilst its factions range from bloggers and “trolls” to more intellectualized intermediaries, what they share in common is that they constitute a break from the dominant strain of U.S. conservativism and desire to (re)assert the primacy of Western, White, male, heterosexual conservativism. The alt-right also challenges authoritarian liberalism—what has been labelled as the “regressive left,” which it critiques for trying to censor discourse about “race,” Islam, and gender politics. The movement aggressively attacks “political correctness” and “victimhood” as a basis of identity politics.
The loosely aligned alt-right, Marwick and Lewis (2017, p. 3) suggest, has “been significant in pushing ideas long seen as unacceptable to mainstream media to seep into public discourse” (p. 11). Anonymity and lack of face-to-face contact within Internet culture “have fostered widespread use of insults, bullying, and supremacists speech” as a feature of its presence (Lyons, 2017, p. 13). Many alt-rightists have also followed the European New Right “metapolitical” strategy of seeking to transform broader culture (Lyons, 2017). 5 In this interpretation, political positions are merely a manifestation of broader cultural values and merit, and perspectives are learned from cultural rather than political sources. Culture, in this regard, is a key battleground over social values.
Arguably the most notorious spokesperson, media provocateur Milo Yiannopolous has regularly stated he “doesn’t care about politics,” instead quoting Andrew Breitbart’s dictum that “politics is downstream from culture.” That Yiannopolous is a Jewish and gay man, bringing to light often anti-Semitic and homophobic positions proffered within the movement, reveals the tensions across the alt-right spectrum. Indeed, the alt-right is deeply fractured and marked by constant infighting (see Lyons, 2017; Marwick & Lewis, 2017; Ross Reid, 2017), may diverge deeply in beliefs, yet share tactics and converge on common issues. For instance, Breitbart is derided by those on the anti-Semitic White supremacist far-right as a bastion of Jewish sympathy, for its pro-Israeli stance (see Marwick & Lewis, 2017).
The alt-right has been labelled by critics as an attempt to “rebrand” and legitimize White supremacy, misogyny, homophobia, and antisemitism and as simply “White nationalism engineered to appeal to millennials” (Marwick & Lewis, 2017, p. 11). The very term alt-right as a neologism has been contested. Whilst embraced by acolytes, critics have argued that the term is deceptive and hides the movement's fascistic, White supremacists, or neo-Nazi politics. However, the term alt-right, as we employ it here, does not obfuscate White nationalism or right-wing extremism. Rather, we note that within the alt-right, whilst White nationalism actually “constitutes the movement’s centre of gravity” (Lyons, 2017, p. 6), it includes new manifestations and fractures including anti-globalization, antiestablishment, and misogynist elements.
As Lyons (2017) notes, the growth of the alt-right has been marked by the development of complicated relationships with more moderate rightists: the alt-lite. This “wider circle of sympathizers and popularizers” (p. 38) who share skepticism towards liberally orthodox positions on matters such as race, gender, and party politics have been significant in bringing their ideas to mainstream audiences. As Marwick and Lewis (2017) note, the emergence in the last decade of “an extensive, hyperpartisan right-wing network of news web” (p. 23) has been a critical feature of this process. A central theme of which, Benkler et al. (2017) note, is “attacks on the integrity and professionalism of opposing media” (p. 2). Breitbart, Marwick and Lewis (2017) note, “is at the center of this new ecosystem.” 6 As Reid Ross (2017) notes, “Breitbart became a nexus through which members of the alt right could interface with the radical right and conservative movement on common ground” (p. 325).
Breitbart News was founded in 2007 by Andrew Breitbart 7 as a conservative counterpart to the left-leaning political news aggregator Huffington Post. In a relatively short period, Breitbart News has outgrown other mainstream conservative outlets. Readership grew from 2.9 min unique visitors in 2012 to 17 min in 2016, making it the most-read conservative news website in the United States (British Broadcasting Corporation, November 14, 2016). Following Andrew Breitbart’s death in March 2012, Breitbart News later aligned with the alt-right under the management of former executive chairman Steve Bannon—who explicitly declared the website “the platform for the alt-right” (see Posner, 2016). Breitbart News’ provocative content routinely attacks liberals, feminists, environmentalists, and Islamists. Its inflammatory headlines, which reflect a politics of agitation, have included “Hoist it high and proud: The Confederate flag proclaims a glorious heritage” (July 1, 2015), “The solution to online “harassment” is simple: Women should log off” (July 5, 2016), “Does feminism make women ugly?” (July 26, 2015), “Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy” (December 8, 2015), and “Would you rather your child had feminism or cancer?” (February 19, 2016). Following his election, Trump subsequently appointed Bannon as chief strategist, paving the way for the alt-right into mainstream polity. 8
The launch of Breitbart Sports in 2013 revealed the intent and understanding of the wider importance of sports in an opening editorial. First, it noted “the common love of a sports team has a unique way of uniting otherwise disparate communities” (December 31, 2012). It continued, “sports just might be one of the few topics left that can transcend our political differences.” Thus, sport was framed as a site that provides social coherence, that is, as transcendent of social divisions. The explicit entanglement with cultural struggle was, however, subsequently revealed with the assertion that “sports has become a key (as much as Hollywood) component of driving our cultural narrative, which by definition eventually affects our political narrative.” Thus, sport was envisioned as an element of culture that is “upstream” and hence of significance for politics. Noting their intent, the editorial continued: “At Breitbart Sports, we will certainly report on the blatant politicization of sports. We will break down ‘the game film of the game film,’ and, as you might expect, hold the sports media accountable” (December 31, 2012). As we demonstrate below, there are significant paradoxes in Breitbart’s framing of sport as politically transcendent, yet simultaneously effecting their “political narrative”.
Post–9/11 U.S. Mediasport
Mediasport critics have long interrogated the U.S. sports media, noting “mainstream” coverage as essentially conservative in nature, aligning with dominant cultural politics, and hence tending to reinforce extant social relations (see McDonald, 2006; Messner, Dunbar, & Hunt, 2000). A substantive body of literature across communication and sports studies has interrogated the cultural politics of U.S. mediasport in the post–9/11 era. This work has identified the consolidation of a particular cultural, political, and moral conservativism as articulated around sporting figures and formations (events, telecasts, film, advertising). Several authors have highlighted, for example, televised sporting spectacles as sites promoting a reinvigorated imperialistic, masculinist U.S. nationalism (see Butterworth, 2005, 2008, 2014a, 2014b; Butterworth & Moskal, 2009; King, 2008; Kusz, 2007, 2017; Silk & Falcous, 2005; Stempel, 2006). Butterworth (2005), for instance, highlights the place of mediated sport in affirming a narrow version of U.S. patriotism, militarism, and the political rhetoric of the interventionist “war on terror,” characterised by “discouraging expressions of dissent” (p. 1479). Similarly, Stempel (2006) has argued that “televised masculinist sport constitutes a central institution in producing…militaristic nationalism” (p. 102), which mobilises support and garners acquiescence.
Several authors have noted how this particular conservative exceptionalism articulates across indices of race, class, gender, and religiosity in various ways. Kusz (2007), for example, notes the emergence of expressions of a “reactionary form of White cultural nationalism” (p. 77) across mediasport in film (Kusz, 2008), broadcasting (Kusz, 2007), and advertising (Kusz, 2017) that entangle a regressive racial politics. This culturally conservative rhetoric, Kusz argues, “promote[s] and seek to naturalize White cultural nationalism through using notions of White victimization, reverse racism, and alleged White systematic advantage” (p. 81). Grano, similarly, details how a reinvigorated emphasis on “character-talk” (2010) and “public forgiveness” (2014) in the case of African American NFL star Michael Vick entangles an explicitly hierarchical racialized politics that reasserts myths of “superendowed physicality and dispositional trouble” (p. 255) of African American athletes. Thus, the regressive and hierarchical binary construction of Whiteness and Blackness entangle these post–9/11 mediasport politics.
Further analyses have centered upon the mediated celebrity of White sporting figures such as Mark McGwire (Butterworth, 2007) and Tim Tebow (Butterworth, 2013; Hawzen & Newman, 2017). Hawzen and Newman (2017), for instance, note Tebow’s celebrity as “a frame through which conservative cultural politics, “White normativity,” and backlash identity politics in Obama-era American popular culture could emerge” (p. 13). In particular, they note Tebow “emerged as a subject of Christian persecution and standard bearer of “good” moral values” (p. 19) that consolidated a “clamoring white victimhood of ‘postracial’ America” (p. 20). Most recently, Kusz (2017) has noted the rise of “Trumpism” and the sporting entanglements of the “backlash” politics of “unapologetic, authoritarian white masculinity” (p. 240) it connects with. This body of literature speaks to the consolidation of a particular, and relatively implicit, reactionary cultural politics across mainstream media sport sites. The emergence of Brietbart Sports, however, represents the mediation and centralization of sport within a particularly explicit set of hard-right political sensibilities. Indeed, as noted above, Breitbart positions itself against mainstream sports media. It is this framing that we seek to interrogate in this article.
Method
For this analysis, we took a systematic approach to collecting and interpreting content published on Breitbart Sports in the lead-up to the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Our sample included all published articles in Breitbart Sports between December 1, 2014, and the November 8, 2016, presidential election. Our critical cultural studies approach is informed by McDonald and Birrell’s (1999) advocacy of “reading sport critically” and King’s (2005) invocation of Stuart Hall’s notion of articulation as a feature of a “methodological contingency.” Specifically, in this regard, we seek to make a situated, contingent, and complex reading of Breitbart Sports content that reveals the network of social, political, economic, and cultural articulations, or linkages, that it both reflects and is constitutive of. Thus, seeking to avoid “reductive tendencies,” we map out how, at this historical juncture, a particular set of discourses surrounding nationalism, gender, race, sexuality, religion, the environment, activism, and politics can emerge, and the intersections of cultural power they both invoke and, in turn, mobilize.
There is much in Breitbart Sports, like other mainstream mediasport outlets, that appears as mundane coverage: accounts of events, discussion thereof, game or player analysis, and statistical information. As Whannel (2009) notes, such “sports chatter” itself is neither “neutral” nor objective, nor absent of broader implications or cultural connotations. Emphasizing its gendered framing, he describes it as “a form of exchange, largely between men and tending to exclude women, in which analysis of events, tactics, players and performances blend with anecdote, banter and reminiscence” (p. 76). This is true of the sports chatter on Breitbart, which focusses on a narrow range of male, commercialized sports and events.
Such chatter, Whannel (2009) argues, promotes several things: the separateness of sport as a social “world apart,” and the circulation of masculine cultural capital which consolidates and binds those within this masculinist and heterosexist culture, and which excludes and distances those outside it. The gatekeepers (editors and journalists) of such media wield a degree of cultural power in their ability to inflect discussion in particular directions and shape what Rowe (1999) terms the “cultural economy” of media sport—where information, ideas, and images are exchanged. Power over media sport brings with it other forms of power—economic, social, cultural, and ideological (Rowe, 1999). Thus, Breitbart’s “mundane” sports coverage is not itself neutral or apolitical.
We focus our analysis, however, upon that coverage which utilizes sport to articulate to, or engage, wider political discourses and events. To organize our source material, we analyzed all Breitbart Sports content for the sample period for explicit connections to broader themes of national polity, identity, and cultural politics and election- and campaign-related issues. We then thematized 181 articles based on the topics they engaged. We present our analysis under five thematic headings: U.S. superiority and sporting hierarchies; alt-right identity politics; White identity politics; sport and electioneering; and confronting liberal politics. It is important to note that whilst we organize our analysis around these headings, they interlock as part of a wider political and cultural discourse. That is, any given article’s content may, and often does, cross several themes simultaneously. Whilst space precludes dealing with every single article in the near 2-year time span of our sample, we provide illustrative examples below.
U.S. Superiority and Sporting Hierarchies
This theme features a complex mix of interlocking topics: U.S. superiority, sporting hierarchies, glorifying military heroes, and identifying internal “threats.” In particular, U.S. football is promoted as a superior sport over both international and domestic alternatives. “Disruptive” elements and “soft” liberalism are also specified in the form of “disloyal” immigrants and “attacks” on the U.S. flag being flown at sports events. Those disloyal to conservativism (liberal media, critics, environmentalists) are contrasted with “patriots,” often in the form of fallen soldiers.
In “American Football versus International Futbol,” for instance, Scott Pinkser (May 30, 2015) asserts U.S. sporting masculinity, strength, and prowess whilst deriding “international futbol” (association football), the latter of which is framed in comparison as corrupt, boring (due to a lack of scoring), and physically inferior. Having established this hierarchy, the article then derides then President Obama’s pronouncement that “I’m a soccer Dad myself” and that “If I had a son, I’d have to think long and hard before I let him play football,” framing him as an enfeebled, emasculated liberal. The celebration of American football in this vein was a consistent theme. “The Sport of Presidents” (Flynn, February 16, 2015), for example, chronicles the history of U.S. presidents enjoying football, framing it as a quintessentially American game, valued by “great” former statesmen.
Similarly, “Football Brings Us Together” 9 (Flynn, January 29, 2015) suggests that football “brings Americans together like nothing else.” The article attacks “media antagonists” who the author suggests have deceptively emphasized the sport’s potential effects on early mortality, heightened suicide rates, and concussive brain damage for National Football League (NFL) players. On the contrary, the author claims, “Football does a body good” as it teaches “basic life lessons” and is also a site that challenges racial prejudices. The game, Flynn claims, “favors talent, hard work, toughness—not a player’s race, religion, or class.” Indeed, entangling issues from obesity to absentee fathers, he argues “America’s epidemic of under-fathered, over-medicated, obese youngsters receives an antidote on the gridiron.” The author thus seeks to refute media that has highlighted the issues of player safety and long-term health in U.S. football. 10 It closes with an appeal to victimhood: “Why do Americans play, watch, and cheer when journalists constantly tell us we should feel guilty for doing so?” Such scepticism of mainstream (always framed as liberal) media is characteristic of alt-right positions.
The celebration of (U.S.) “football” is a recurrent theme and contrasted with articles that deride the NBA. “Kobe: Americans Lag Behind Europeans in Basketball Fundamentals” (Flynn, D., January 3, 2015), for instance, is critical of “big” U.S. players who “do all this fancy crap,” yet apparently lack “fundamentals of the game” in contrast to “more skillful [sic]” European players. Flynn identifies in Bryant’s preference for the “fundamentals” over “fancy crap” a way to juxtapose and construct racial difference that implicitly celebrates White majority European players and disparages African American players in the National Basketball Association (NBA).
“Disruptive” elements in U.S. sports culture were also identified. An article critical of Mexican Americans who support the Mexican football team at Copa America games in the United States (“Fans Make America Mexico Again at Soccer Tournament,” Flynn, D., 2016) recounts fans booing the U.S. national anthem. The article questions the loyalty of “immigrants” who are caricaturized as those who “work in construction,” whilst also deriding a 2011 postmatch ceremony conducted in Spanish. Also highlighting “enemies within,” “SC School Bans American Flag from Football Games Because It Offends Hispanic Students” (Warner Todd Huston, August 2016) highlights a South Carolina high school preventing fans from displaying U.S. flags during school football games that were allegedly used to “taunt” Hispanic/Latino students. The article cites a student saying: “I’m sick of this political correctness” as the counter narrative from which this practice should be sustained. In this example, conservatives who can no longer display their symbols of pride are framed as victim of a “liberal PC” lobby whose questioning of the national flag and inclusiveness threaten it. Further disruptive elements are found in the form of “animal rights activists” who interrupted an MLB game (“UnAmerican! Animal Rights Activists Protest Dodger Dogs on Fourth of July Weekend”, Flynn, July 4, 2016) and environmental protestors (“Environmentalist Sues U of Nebraska Over Balloon Release During Cornhusker Games,” Huston, May 12, 2016). The lattermost story is critical of an “environmental activist” who filed a lawsuit against the University of Nebraska for releasing balloons prior to their football games as they were an environmental hazard. The article ridicules the activist as having “presented no actual evidence,” the effect being to ridicule environmental activists as extremist, irrational, and to delegitimize their causes more generally.
Such “disruptive” elements are contrasted with liturgized fallen U.S. soldiers (America Remembers Baseball’s Pat Tillman, Breitbart, May 25, 2015) or football players (“Chuck Bednarik Bombed Nazis Before He Blitzed Quarterbacks”, Flynn, March 21, 2015). Following an obituary of Muhammed Ali upon his death in June 2016, Daniel Flynn offered a critical assessment of how Ali’s legacy should be assessed in relation to these venerated soldiers (“Muhammad Ali No Hero, Just a Hypocrite, for Dodging Draft” (June 4, 2016). Flynn asserts the “hypocrisy” of Muhammad Ali for “dodging” the draft. Ali is labelled a hypocrite, which Flynn claims stems from his Islamic faith, arguing “The broader religion he followed then, as now, inspired scores of conflicts around the world. But the heavyweight champion of the world said his faith wouldn’t allow him to partake in violence. That, like Ali, was rich.” Thus, Flynn simultaneously condemns Ali and frames Islam as belligerent. Flynn’s narrative epitomizes a singular expression of wartime nationalism, whereby being an active agent of war (as opposed to a pacifist) is the only state by which good citizenship can be expressed.
In keeping with the criticism of the media mainstream, the article is also critical of Huffington Post and New York Times coverage of Ali. A follow-up article highlighted the “politicization” of a memorial service for Ali (“Rabbi Turns Ali Service Into Political Pep Rally, Denounces “Racist Police,” Says “1 Percent” Must “Share Their Wealth” (Flynn, June 10, 2016). The author asserts that Rabbi Michael Lerner, a “sixties-activist-turned-spiritual-guru,” transformed a mourning service “into a pep rally for left-wing causes…“The article reported Lerner saying “it’s time to create a guaranteed income,” “help create a Palestinian state,” and rid society of “racist police” and “racist judges.” Such framing feeds the idea of unfair liberal politicization of a memorial service, simultaneously entangling welfare, Middle-east politics, and framing criticism of the police and justice system as “left wing.”
These discourses thematically coalesce to endorse an interventionist imperialistic militarism that has become heightened across U.S. sport since 9/11 and affirms a narrowed version of citizenship (see Butterworth, 2005, 2008, 2012, 2014b; Butterworth & Moskal, 2009). This framing also entangles a sporting hierarchy and U.S. exceptionalism—which asserts the superiority of U.S. football both internationally and domestically. The jingoistic celebration of exemplary “patriots” is entrenched through the stigmatisation of disruptive and “disloyal” elements within the nation from Mexican American fans, black-coded NBA players, immigrants, environmentalists, to Muhammed Ali. The criticism of the NBA as characterised by “showboating” players, for example, echoes long-standing racialized discourses of the league as a problematic African American and urban phenomenon (see Grano, 2007; Griffin & Calafell, 2011).
Alt-Right Identity Politics
Meshing with the conservative moral and sexual agendas of the Christian-right, articles under this theme valorize the “Christian” presence in sport. Contributors to Breitbart Sports thus portray Christian athletes as persecuted by sports organizations (media, teams, governing bodies), who promote socially liberal agendas. In doing so, they often identify gay athletes who “falsely” claim homophobia and play the “victim card” as part of a wider liberal “politicization” of sport. This positionality serves as a good indication of Breitbart as alt-lite as elements of the alt-right grounded in ethno-nationalist racial politics are critical of Christianity’s universalism. The Christian right, however, promotes socially conservative positions particularly around abortion, sexuality, pornography, and education.
Promotion of the Christian right-wing takes several forms. In its simplest, it involves highlighting Christian practice in sport: For example, that some NBA teams have “volunteer chaplains” and that “players partake in Christian prayer circles before games” (“Prayer a Pregame Ritual for Some NBA Players,” Huston, April 25, 2015). Similarly, the article “Troy Polamalu Retires after Visit to Church” (Breitbart News, April 10, 2015) highlights Polamalu’s Christian faith and as a guiding force in his retirement from the NFL. There is also a framing of Christian athletes and values as unfairly marginalized. “Where Are the Christian Athletes?” (Costa, April 3, 2015) suggests the existence of Christian persecution in how commercial sport leagues have “completely embraced [the] LGBT community” and politics and failed to consider Christian beliefs. A major theme of this article is “Religious Freedom” and condemnation in the following terms of those inhibiting it: The agenda seems clear…through intimidation tactics and with the full compliance of the media as well as many political leaders, forces everyone everywhere to affirm, elevate, and embrace homosexuality and gay marriage. Anything less, even if it involves spiritual convictions which guide many people through each of their days, is to be discounted if not totally dismissed strangely in the name of tolerance. (Costa, D., April 2015)
Simultaneously, several articles claim that U.S. sporting culture is not homophobic, an assertion that attempts to gain traction by highlighting certain cases and issuing victimhood claims. For example, “1st Gay Player Tops Value Add List” (Pudner, J., April 30, 2015) details the case of openly gay athlete, Derrick Gordon, who was subjected to “not a single gay slur.” This is contrasted with: “the attacks…come from the political left, with such groups as Moveon.org going so far as to pressure ESPN to fire Chris Broussard for even questioning if [Jason] Collins’s [an openly gay NBA player] lifestyle could be consistent with Christian beliefs. Christians got attacked for daring to speak, not Collins or Gordon.” Thus, the “real” victims are framed as those with Christian beliefs not openly homosexual players. Along similar lines, “Michael Sam Blames ‘Coming Out’ as Gay for Failing to Find Home in NFL” (Williams, May 9, 2016) derides claims of homophobia affecting openly gay NFL player Michael Sam’s career prospects. It notes that “Some insiders are insisting that Sam is playing the LGBT victim card by accusing the NFL of anti-gay bias rather than man-up and admit that he simply doesn’t measure up as a pro athlete.” The same argument is made in “Michael Sam’s Problem Lack of Talent, Not an Abundance of Homophobia” (Leberfeld, D. May 12, 2016), which denounces Sam’s argument that homophobia is the reason he was not selected. Daniel Leberfeld argues “the biggest reason is his skill set, not homophobia.” Criticism of media and claims of homophobia combine in “Gay Basketball Transfer: ‘Blatant Homophobia’ Limited Options” (Breitbart News, May 18, 2015), which ridicules the openly gay NCAA basketball player Derrick Gordon’s claim that “blatant homophobia” limited his career, by arguing that he simply was not good enough. Thus, suggestions of systematic prejudice are simply dismissed as individuals “whining” to cover their own personal inadequacies.
A string of articles over the period covered “LGBT politics,” the NCAA, and “liberal agendas.” “NCAA Follows NBA by Demanding LGBT Inclusiveness at Sponsored Events” (Marlow, R. (April 29, 2016), for example, negatively frames the NCAA as a “social justice organization,” citing decisions the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has made to promote diversity and inclusion (re: Native American mascots, transgender athletes, and the Confederate battle flag) as evidence. Articles also emerged around the NCAA’s response to State legislation in North Carolina’s House Bill 2 that restricted public toilets on state property to people of the biological sex indicated on the entrance. “NCAA Removes 7 Championships from NC Due to Bathroom Law” (Breitbart Sports, September 13, 2016), as another example, highlights how “The NCAA removed seven previously scheduled championship events from North Carolina for the upcoming academic year because of the state’s bathroom law.” Similarly, “Notre Dame Prez Tells NCAA It Can’t Decide Morals for Schools” (Huston, W., September 29, 2016) highlights resistance to the liberal “politicization” of sport by the NCAA from Notre Dame President John I. Jenkins. This is contrasted to opposition to the bill which is attributed to “the deep pockets of gay advocacy organizations from outside the state” (“Duke’s Coach K Calls NC Bathroom Law ‘Embarrassing,’” Breitbart Sports, July 21, 2016). “NBA Commissioner Marches in NYC Pride Parade” (Breitbart News, June 27, 2016) meanwhile highlights the NBA and WNBA as complicit with the “sexual left.” It noted how “NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum, and WNBA president Lisa Borders marched in New York’s Pride Parade.” Explicit mention that Hillary Clinton “made an appearance” also serves to align liberal cultural ideals with Democratic (Party) politics.
Within this framing, Christianity is viewed as unfairly marginalized and, indeed, victimized through the existence of a “pro-gay” and “pro-LGBT” “agenda” across sports organizations such as the NCAA, NBA, and the media. Christian “victims” are contrasted with those claiming homophobia in sport who are ridiculed. This framing consolidates the perceived crisis of Christian persecution and relatedly promotes “family” (read patriarchy), national morality and heterosexual “normality,” and White identities characteristic of the (new) Christian right which has increasingly manifested across sports contexts (see Butterworth, 2011; Hawzen & Newman, 2017). Indeed, Khan (2017) has documented how public discourse surrounding NFL player Michael Sam mobilizes intersections of both race and sexuality. Here, Sam is framed as “playing the LGBT victim card” which both delegitimizes wider criticism and stigmatizes Sam himself.
Racialized Identity Politics
Racialized politics were evident within Breitbart Sports with a variety of emphases. The most talked about figure during our period of analysis was NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, due to his pregame national anthem protests that aligned with public unrest in light of high-profile police shootings of African Americans. Coverage was highly critical of Kaepernick labelling him as self-indulgent, ill-informed, and lacking wider support. It also featured coverage that implies false claims of racism and left-wing criticism as disingenuous.
The first mention of Kaepernick (“SF Cops: ‘Mr. Kaepernick Has Embarrassed Himself,’” Flynn, August 30, 2016) highlights criticism of him by the police officers association and frames Kaepernick as having “targeted cops.” Subsequently, Kaepernick was a source of continued derision. In particular, “Five Facts About ‘Black Oppression’ Colin Kaepernick Needs to Know” (Hudson, September 2, 2016) diminishes the argument of racial prejudice as systemic. It closes with the suggestion that the problem is “the wanton disregard for life in black America”—a pathologization based on racial typecasting and refutation of structural determinants and the forms of protest that might bring them to light.
A series of subsequent articles frame Kaepernick as isolated and lacking support from fellow players (“Images of Steelers, Redskins Standing for National Anthem While Holding American Flag Go Viral,” Rodriguez, September 13, 2016), business owners (“Patriotic Chicago Store Owner Uses Colin Kaepernick Jersey as Doormat”; Huston (September 20, 2016), and among football fans (“Home Crowd Boos Colin Kaepernick, Chants ‘USA!’”, Flynn, September 13, 2016). His protests were also connected to the Democratic Party (“Democrat Senator Cory Booker Criticizes Reaction to Colin Kaepernick’s Anthem Protest” (Huston, September 21, 2016).
Critics of Kaepernick’s protest were consistently highlighted in favorable terms in multiple articles that reinforced an apparent lack of support (“Drew Breese Believes American Flag ‘Sacred,’ Disagrees with Kaepernick Protest”, Marlow, August 30, 2016; “Army Ranger in NFL to Kaepernick: America ‘Providing You $16 Million a Year’” (Breitbart Sports, August 29, 2016).
He concludes that Kaepernick “…and his teammates have been taught since they were undergrads that the more radical they are, the more popular they will be.” Manion’s framing delegitimizes Kaepernick’s protest as self-indulgent and as symptomatic of a soft and liberally “infected” college environment. The deeper, systemic issues are unexplored. In keeping with criticism of ESPN, the network was labelled as Kaepernick’s “cheering section” (“Colin Kaepernick’s Cheering Section Cheers Steve Clevenger’s Suspension”, Flynn, D. J. (September 24, 2016). It notes “…ESPN outs itself as the worldwide leader in hypocrisy.” Kaepernick meanwhile is framed as profiting financially from his protests: “he pockets $16 million a year for sitting on the bench,” which undermines his motives.
Also conforming to this theme of delegitimizing Kaepernick’s stance, in “Left Slams Troy Aikman for Backing Dallas Police,” Joel Pollak (July 10, 2016) is critical of an apparent left-wing “backlash” to Troy Aikman tweeting support for Dallas police following fatal shootings of African Americans. Pollack argues that “Support for police has nothing to do with race” and criticizes a Huffington Post journalist for “leftsplaining” the issue. In so doing, Pollack goes on to feed a narrative that decontextualizes race within the United States, attacks liberal media, and asserts liberal hypocrisy. Similarly reflecting this narrative, “Top NFL Draft Analyst Nolan Nawrocki Isn’t Racist, Just Good at His Job” (Leberfeld, D., April 26, 2016) defends NFL analyst Nolan Nawrocki against allegations of racism. Leberfield notes that “sometimes media snowflakes have issues with his harsh language. But you know what? Critics live in a PC fantasy world.” This article celebrates Nawrocki as a “color blind scout” who “tells it like it is.” It positions him against liberal media and critics for their “soft” treatment of athletes when making evaluations. He is praised in contrast as “he doesn’t cower to the PC thought police.”
As Reid Ross (2017) notes, Breitbart “directs much of its attention to racialized themes like the celebration of the Confederate flag and the decrying of black criminals” (p. 276). This is borne out within sports coverage that aligns with long-standing stereotypes of the “disruptive” non-White athlete noted above (see Grano, 2010, 2014; Griffin & Calafell, 2011). It denies the existence of systemic racism or racial injustice in the United States, for example, in trivializing Kaepernick’s protests as opportunistic. It also lambasts ESPN’s coverage of the protest and stigmatizes “Black America” more generally. In turn, the protests themselves are delegitimized as the product of a rotten, liberal core within college campuses—apparent evidence itself of a soft (liberal) underbelly and “politically correct” culture which is at the heart of an apparnet national malaise.
Sport and Electioneering
A key feature of the buildup to the 2016 election was the alt-right and Breitbart News’ endorsement of Donald Trump, as noted above (see Burley, 2017; Reid Ross, 2017). Within Breitbart Sports, this position was typically developed through coverage of athletes or sporting figures who were endorsing Trump. For example, support for Trump’s presidential primary campaign was signaled in an article that revealed how College Football Hall-of-Fame coach Lou Holtz was supportive of Trump (“Football Legend Lou Holtz Calls Immigration an “Invasion,” Says Donald Trump Wants a First-Class America,” Robert Marlow, July 20, 2016). The article cites Holtz as stating, with respect to the issue of “immigration”: “I don’t want to become you. I don’t want to speak your language, I don’t want to celebrate your holidays, I sure as hell don’t want to cheer for your soccer team!”. Such coverage endorsed Trump and also normalized an isolationist, White-Anglo U.S.-exceptionalism to which soccer was exterior. It further lists other “sports celebrities endorsing the New York billionaire and wanting to help ‘Make America Great Again’”. This promotion was echoed in “Jack Nicklaus on Donald Trump: ‘I’ll Be Voting for Him’” (Breitbart Sports, May 23, 2016) that cites Jack Nicklaus’s support of Donald Trump for President, and that of UFC President Dana White, “UFC President Dana White: ‘Donald Trump Is a Fighter,’” (Flynn, D., July 20, 2016). The effect is to infer a groundswell of popular support for Trump led by well known and popular figures across multiple sports, not noted for other candidates.
Trump himself was framed as shrewd and benevolent in “Trump Investment Pays Off as Former Club Pro Reaches Masters” (AFP, April 4, 2016) that reveals his apparent business acumen. It reports how he “invested” in one of his golf instructors (Herman) to play professional golf. Two things are apparent: first, the “American dream” in the emphasis upon Herman’s hard work and perseverance that paid off. Second, the article positions Trump as generous but also a shrewd investor. In “Hoopster Sarah Palin Swats Cruz, Assists Trump Following Bob Knight Endorsement,” Scholla (April 28, 2016) meanwhile presents a pro-Trump position on Republican “in-fighting” by highlighting Sarah Palin’s support of Trump.
Opponents of Trump meanwhile were lampooned. Hillary Clinton was ridiculed in “Hillary Clinton on Cubs World Series Victory: ‘I’ve Been a Fan All My Life’” (Spiering, C., November 3, 2016) for her apparent “flip-flopping.” The article was critical of the “Clinton campaign” claiming a life-long support of the Chicago Cubs, then contesting the World Series. They cited a 1998 interview in which she professed to be a New York Yankees fan, constructing Clinton as insincere and opportunistic. Three days previously, Breitbart Sport posted a 22-s video. (“Watch: Heckler Interrupts Cubs Post-Game Interview—‘Bill Clinton Is a Rapist’” Baker, October 30) of Chicago Cubs fans which a further fan interrupted to shout, “Go Cubs! Bill Clinton is a rapist.” The effect was to delegitimize “the ‘Clinton camp’ as associated with corruption and criminality.” Similarly, when Dallas Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, spoke out against Trump prior to the election, Breitbart pointed to how he had supported Trump in the primaries just months prior, thereby calling into question Cuban’s stance and credibility (“Mark Cuban Would Rather ‘Lose Every Penny’ Than Have Trump as President,” Gwinn, November 3, 2016).
Confronting Liberal Politics
This theme incorporates articles that make anti-left-wing arguments or claim right-wing victimhood against leftist politics and/or media. It also includes arguments that denounce the mainstream media as complicit with “liberal agendas.” In particular, articles were hypercritical of the historically dominant, mainstream sport media network, ESPN. For instance, “ESPN Anchor Was Only Suspended for Saying ‘F**k Jesus’” (Ruse, April 22, 2016) contrasts the firing of ESPN commentator Curt Schilling “for saying men are men and women are women and they ought to use the bathroom that corresponds to their sex” to ESPN anchor Dana Jacobson’s 2008 “anti-Christian tirade”, for which she was suspended one week. Schilling’s comments are framed as having “caused a firestorm of criticism from the sexual left” which “demanded his firing, and ESPN complied.” Thus, the article lampoons ESPN as both liberal in its agenda and cowardly in submitting to pressure from liberals in the form of the “sexual left.”
This theme was repeated a week later with an article labelling ESPN as the “worldwide leader in liberal hypocrisy” (“Attacking Sarah Palin Just Fine with ESPN: The Worldwide Leader in Liberal Hypocrisy,” Scholla, April 30, 2016). This column criticizes ESPN as a “liberal cesspool” for how, following the sacking of Schilling, they “take cheap shots” at Sarah Palin and “promotes inappropriate, misogynist speech but cracks down on conservatives.” “Curt Schilling Calls Out Stephen A. Smith, ESPN Hypocrites on ‘The Palin Update’” (Scholla, April 28, 2016) meanwhile asserts that “Curt Schilling got fired for telling the truth.” It lambasts ESPN, suggesting that “conservative thought is not welcome in the world of ESPN,” who themselves are hypocritical, employing “accused murderers, people that had beaten their wives, people drunk driving.” At ESPN, “conservatives who don’t dance for the puppet masters are sent packing” it alleges.
“Free Speech For Me But Not for Thee in Liberal Sports Media” (Costa, D. June 14, 2016) is further critical of ESPN’s website The Undefeated as “racially divisive,” liberally biased and the hypocrisy of criticism of athletes taking a conservative stand. “Any athlete takes a stand in support of a right-leaning cause or against a left-leaning cause receive criticism and advice to shut up. This is yet another in a long line of one-way street situations” it alleges. “ESPN, Congressional Democrats Team Up Against NFL” (Flynn, D.J.,May 23, 2016) meanwhile links Democrats to “anti-NFL” concussion voices. There was also critical coverage of the NHL for apparently disproportionate punishments that reveal a “pro-liberal” bias arguing that the NHL’s priorities are “not straight” (“The NHL Gets It Wrong Punishing Anti-Gay Words But Not Goon Actions,” Barron, C., April 21, 2016). Here, the author alleges that the NHL wrongfully applied the same one-game punishment to a player who illegally hit another player and a player who made an antigay remark.
This theme reinforces the recurrent assertion of hypocrisy, double standards, and liberal bias within sports administration and in sports media. Labelling ESPN as a “liberal cesspool” reinforces the “drain the swamp” rhetoric of conservative populism upon which Donald Trump’s appeal is based. The central feature of this is the assertion that conservative athletes and causes are marginalized across a range of sites by hypocritical liberals.
The Cultural Battleground: The Mainstreaming of Alt-Lite Ideology in Breitbart Sports
As nationalist populism has emerged to become the dominant force in right-wing politics in the United States, much attention has been focused on Donald Trump. As we have noted, the alt-right and media such as Breitbart News burgeoned as a popular presence in the lead-up to the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Breitbart thus must be understood as part of a larger “eco-system” of hyperpartisan right-wing media and symptomatic of a shifting media paradigm (see Benkler et al., 2017, Marwick & Lewis, 2017). As we noted at the outset, and drawing upon Ahmed (2004), this article is an attempt to explore the rise of right-wing populism as entangled with circulation of an “affective economy of fear” within everyday life.
It is important to note, that the alt-right, Breitbart and Donald Trump are not synonymous. Alternatively, they intersect along multiple vectors and at times, diverge. Breitbart is a fellow traveler with the alt-right on multiple issues, yet avoids explicit ethno-nationalist White supremacism and anti-Semitism, instead promoting “alt-lite” conservativism. The broader significance of Breitbart and alt-lite celebrities like Milo Yiannopoulos, Burley notes, is as a “mainstreaming platform that the far right can use as a stepping stone” (p. 181). Breitbart in this regard acts as a “nexus through which members of the alt-right [can] interface with the radical right and conservative movement on common ground” (Reid Ross, 2017, p. 325). Within the context of a “meta-political” strategy that foregrounds culture, it is unsurprising that sport is seen as “cultural battleground,” and hence not immune from scrutiny.
As our analysis of December 2014 to November 2016 reveals, Breitbart Sports presents hyperpartisan hard-right agendas promoting U.S. superiority and militarism, sporting exceptionalism, the Christian right, cultural conservativism, White victimhood, and promoted Donald Trump whilst decrying opponents and rivals. It defines itself against an apparently prevailing “liberal order” across education, in media, policy, and sports governance. Thus, sport is framed as an institution that is under attack from a pro-liberal bias in sports administration (e.g., via the NCAA, the NHL), and mainstream sports media (specifically, ESPN).
But there is a selectiveness to the site’s critique of “politicization.” When sport is seen as politicized, it is always for “the liberals” at the expense of conservatism. Through the Breitbart lens masculine sport traditions are besieged, pro-LGBT agendas are wielded, anti-Americanism runs rampant, “snowflake” liberalism is promoted, and “Christian values” are under attack. Within these framings, liberals are portrayed as treating conservatives unfairly and “crying foul” over racism or homophobia that does not apparently exist. It is “liberals” themselves who are framed as the sexists, bigots, and hypocrites. Breitbart also identifies those loyal to “true” right-wing values who they champion (e.g., Tim Tebow, Lou Holtz, Donald Trump). These figures are contrasted with those who are apparently disloyal, ungrateful, hypocritical, or disruptive (Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Muhammed Ali, Colin Kaepernick, environmentalists, animal rights activists).
As Benkler et al. (2017) note, hyperpartisan sites “combine decontextualized truths, repeated falsehoods, and leaps of logic to create a fundamentally misleading view of the world.” Breitbart claims legitimacy in sports coverage over and above the “mainstream” through a variety of strategies. This includes the use of quasi-moral arguments, evoking emotional affect and claiming victimhood. For example, Breitbart framed the words of Curt Schilling and other ESPN commentators as equal expressions of free speech, yet highlighted how Schilling got sacked while the others merely got suspended. “Hypocrisy” is a pervasive theme: Breitbart frequently identifies an opponent (e.g., Colin Kaepernick, Hillary Clinton, Mark Cuban) as illegitimate, exposing their “hypocrisy.” Inflammatory and highly directive headlines fulfil the purpose of engendering negative emotional responses in its targets. In this ouvre, victimhood can be claimed on behalf of American football fans, a sport which is held to “[do] the body good”. Such a position expressly dismisses scientific consensus and omits that the NFL has consistently denied the link between head trauma, concussions, and the brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
Breitbart also features a selective positionality of arguments. For instance, the criticism of (mostly African American) NBA players as “lacking fundamentals” is insulated by Kobe Bryant’s positionality as an African American, and a respected “legend” of the game. In other words, Breitbart strategically uses Bryant’s ethnicity to “prove” its case—within an article criticizing black-coded NBA players, thereby insulating Breitbart’s argument from criticism on the grounds of “race.” Critically, the coverage never explicitly introduces the specter of “race,” thus there is a “plausible deniability” at work given that there are both Black and White players in the NBA.
As we have noted above, “mainstream” media sport has long been critiqued as culturally conservative. A growing body of post 9/11 U.S. research has identified portents within mainstream mediasport to many of the themes we have observed above, in particular, a politics of portraying conservativism as disadvantaged, unprivileged, and socially marginalized (see Butterworth, 2007, 2011; Hawzen & Newman, 2017; Kusz, 2017). Yet, there are differences between the largely latent politics that characterize mainstream sports coverage, and the directly and explicitly hyperpartisan Breitbart coverage that connects with wider contexts beyond sport that we document here.
Breitbart Sports represents a new politicization of sport within explicitly unapologetically hard right-wing agendas. This sees sport cast sport explicitly as a “cultural battleground” within the “metapolitics” that characterizes the alt-lite presence. As numerous writers have noted “race” is at the center of alt-right positionality (Burley, 2017 , Reid-Ross, 2017). The positions reflected in Breitbart Sports fit within what Burley (2017) terms a “whitelash,” the emergence of an explicit White identity politics that has coalesced around Trump’s populist Republicanism. Breitbart Sports coverage offers up “dog-whistle” racial politics: deploying coded language that appeals to a particular target audience—much of which reinforce the idea that structurally marginalized people are the problem. Thus, through framing, omissions, and innuendo, White supremacy is surreptitiously embedded in the positions taken and the cultural politics promoted. Breitbart Sports in this way is a gateway to the mainstreaming of hard-right views.
There has been some “pushback” against Breitbart. After Trump’s election win, more than 2,000 organizations removed advertising following Internet activism campaigns (see Kennedy, January 7, 2017). For example, in November 2016, Kellogg’s discontinued advertising on Breitbart which it deemed not to be “aligned with our values as a company.” In response, Breitbart launched a #DumpKelloggs petition and called for a boycott of the food conglomerate, describing it as “one more example of an out-of-touch corporation embracing false left-wing narratives used to cynically smear the hard working Americans that populate this nation’s heartland” (“#dumpkellogs: Breakfast Brand Blacklists Breitbart, Declares Hate for 45,000,000 Readers”; November 30, 2016). As yet, we have not seen resistance to Breitbart in or through mainstream sports.
Breitbart Sports framing casts sport as cultural battleground, a framing that is filled with resentment and anxiety. These features mirror the mythopoetic hallmark of fascism that seeks to create a mythical reality, or an everyday life that stems from myth not reality (see Reid-Ross, 2017). Within such a framework, alternative narratives (around sport or in general) are delegitimized and deemed “fake news”—owing to the centrality and truthfulness of a unique configuration of identity politics, geopolitics, and national renditions that define the contemporary alt-right movement. As such, Breitbart Sports politicizes sport under the guise of neutrality to consolidate the potential ideological affects yielded through the telling of stories.
As Reid-Ross (2017) notes, there is fundamentally a porous border between fascism and the hard-right, through which fascism is able to “creep” into mainstream discourse. Breitbart Sport coverage stimulates this affective economy within alt-right terms and strategies. The challenge for media sport researchers is to explore how this creeping discourse becomes entangled in and through the likes of sports media. Here, we have focused on media texts alone, and there is a need to explore the complexities of both their production and reception by audiences. Simultaneously, Breitbart Sports presents a challenge for sports communication and media researchers, and mediasport producers themselves. Researchers have long critiqued sports coverage as socially constructed, selective, and hence power-laden. They have done so in the context of left-leaning socially critical frameworks that highlight media sport as affirming dominant (i.e., conservative) cultural politics. A critique of sports media as power-laden is now coming from those with a hard-right agenda, which claims liberal bias and left-leaning “political” distortion. The emergence of this critique from Breitbart throws into even sharper focus questions of what type of sports news is trustworthy and/or legitimate. A decreased trust in mainstream media characterizes the political present. Yet the media, functioning critically is a vital institution for preserving freedoms, rights, and democracy. As Benkler et al. (2017) conclude, “traditional media needs to reorient, not by developing better viral content and clickbait to compete in the social media environment, but by recognizing that it is operating in a propaganda and disinformation-rich environment” (p. 15). With this observation in mind, it is our hope that this article can sharpen the focus of this debate amongst both mediasport researchers and journalists.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.