There’s identity politics. This, my friends and enemies, is the identity sports equivalent.
And the purpose and intent: To make sure mega and MAGA are never separated moving forward and forever when it comes to its arranged marriage to sports.
Like basketball to urban America, football to rural American, baseball to old America and Latino and Hispanic countries, hockey to Canada and Russia, UFC (and MMA overall, for the most part) have found much of its identification directly aligned and associated with a certain oligarchy of America and the politics of that group of people’s line of thinking.
And that group’s co-leader happens to sit in the Oval Office of the White House. So while using the country’s 250th birthday — along with coincidentally President Trump’s 80th birthday which coincidentally is on the scheduled day of the event — the UFC Freedom 250 that will take place on the White House South Lawn on June 14 will be much more than a celebration of sport and this country’s independence. It will both be and represent the pageantry through sports of the lens in which a camouflaged exhibition of separatism wants to see itself and the rest of us.
Dana White, the adjacent co-leader of the sport’s identity, the “boss” of the UFC, in recent weeks has found himself on everything from HBO Max’s “What Went Down” to landing on the cover of Time. White (no pun) nationalism sold as a title unification extravaganza between Justin Gaethje and Ilia Topuria. Patriotism protected as isolationism. Caitlin Clark and Jaxon Dart approximately becoming pawns in the bigger scheme. Knicks owner James Dolan BFF’ing during the NBA Finals to remind Trump who was his sports guy before White came along.
No reason to even get into the “rumored” banning of current middleweight champion Sean Strickland who feels he’s being banned from the event because he’s “not Israeli enough” while also saying “Trump is owned by [Benjamin Netanyahu]. That’s not public opinion, it’s fact” and how on-brand him not being a part of this is to the UFC’s whole sports identity.
It feels like Freedom 250 is “Chancellor” Trump’s own personal version of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, with him having control so that there will be no Jesse Owens present to upset their set-up. (Of course the only Black American fighter, Derrick Lewis, would be the one on the card with the most loses (13), and the oldest (41). Just recognizing the subliminal. On a side note: Trump himself apparently, according to reports, asked for Lewis to be on the card as a seventh fight when White only had six on the original bookings. Just acknowledging the tokenism.) A spectacle that is more identity than sports.
A $60 million dollar “logistical high-wire act” is how ESPN described an event that, according to White, should get “Super Bowl-type numbers.” Even with fewer than 5,000 people in attendance.
And don’t forget the merch. One-ounce PF70 Trump (Commemorative) Coins X UFC Gold Medallion collection with Trump’s face on one side of each coin are being sold by the Trump Organization for the low cost of just under $12,000. Per-person sponsorship packages supposedly are available for $1 million to $1.5 million each.
It’s all a part of the Trump/White ticket that has proven to be (think UFC: Fight Island in Abu Dhabi in 2020, having UFC 306 be the first sporting event at the Sphere in Las Vegas in 2024) in a more low-key, less-acknowledged way, more persuasive in its power than Trump/Vance; more dangerous in its ability to galvanize followers and build complicity than Trump/Musk, Trump/Truth Social and Trump/Fox.
If we just picked a candidate that didn’t believe some of us should probably still be picking cotton then things might be a little different. For the unchosen few.
It’s all become performative propaganda wrapped in the guise of sports. With this latest “arrangement” at the White House being the one where they’ve blatantly removed the mask to unabashedly and proud boy-ly show the country UFC/GOP is a political force all by itself. I’m not sure, just super certain of this.
It’s all a part of the transformation of not just UFC but of the direction two men want to continue to see the country leaning — and both doing what they can as a tandem to make sure the country stays this way. With UFC Freedom 250 being the one one of them demands — and gets — as the 30 For 30 ESPN does on him once he leaves office to document his presidential impact in sports and keep the messaging alive long after his regime. His “The Birth of a Nation.”
In honor and to honor not necessarily the entire 250 years of America but to instead honor what and how America was 250 years ago. And to further bow down to the man who now holds the seat and keys to the house that represents the color and pathology of everything being done for his people to get their country back.