The White House campus has become immersed in construction chaos as President Donald Trump has prepared to host his controversial UFC Freedom 250 fight in June. The cage fight on the South Lawn will mark both the United States’ 250th and Trump’s 80th birthdays, with the latter aspect prompting many to note the MAGA-oriented overtones of the affair. And as one expert who spoke with Mother Jones suggested, while both UFC and Trump hope the event will prop up their brands, the whole thing may backfire as more and more fans say, “I can’t watch this anymore.”
“The UFC and Dana White arguably helped Trump get elected,” explained Kyle Green, a sociologist at SUNY Brockport who focuses on the intersection of sports and politics. White is the CEO of UFC and has remained a steadfast ally of Trump over his political career. “They put him in contact with Joe Rogan, who puts him in contact with all the other podcast bros. That really helped Trump, especially in the last election.”
As Green explained, UFC and MAGA found a comfortable overlap with their heavy themes of violence, masculinity, and showmanship, and in many ways, the two forces have co-constructed their identities. UFC played an instrumental role in popularizing Trump, and as his MAGA movement grew, UFC fighters increasingly aped its bawdy bigotry. According to Green, racist, misogynistic trash talk has become more and more common as fighters parroted “the most offensive” Trump ideas, “leaning into the MAGA fan base.”
But while a purely MAGA message has worked for Trump, Green says that White has his own priorities and recognizes the limits of such an approach.
On one hand, the UFC is currently trying to break into boxing and is using Saudi money in an effort to tear down the safety protections set in place by the Muhammad Ali Act. Congress is currently considering whether or not it will reform the act, and Trump could play a key role in bringing GOP lawmakers in line. The White House fight is theoretically a means of building that influence.
“If we believe what Dana White and Trump are saying, the UFC is paying for this, right?” said Green. “And White has said that he’s going to lose millions with this fight, with the construction and everything. But they’re getting a lot of political power. I think White’s politics are fundamentally transactional. He’s trying to strategize a way to amass the most power and money, and he’s played it well up to this point by attaching himself to Trump.”
Importantly, however, “there’s a limit to that. So he’s trying to figure out how to not offend Trump supporters, but still strike a balance in order to attract new fans. He’s leaned very heavily into saying, ‘I’m apolitical, sports are not political.’” But as Green explains, it’s hard to claim a sport is apolitical when it’s being held on the White House lawn.
As a result, “a bunch of the core fanbase is struggling right now,” said Green. “And the central question we’re asking them is, what does this do to your fandom? For some of them, they’re like, ‘I can’t watch this anymore.’”
