Growing up in the United States there were, are, and will always have extremely famous athletes that shine brighter than the others. Also, these athletes have an effect on a mass amount of people. So, there have been times where athletes have spoken about their political stances and opinions. In the article, “The era of the sports god who shuns politics is sadly over” explains the benefits of famous athletes keeping politics aside for their careers and fan base.

Sports are about competing, amazing plays, and lessons of life. When talking about sports, most people can agree that these activities unite people as one family. In the article, author Clay Travis explains how sports teams are all diverse in race, religion, and background. But, do the athletes let that get in the way of becoming a family? Maybe, but that is never advised or has never made a team better. When really famous athletes begin to take sides on a political situation, it can put a negative effect on them and their team. Travis, gives an example to support his opinion about leaving politics to the people in charge. He describes, when a reporter asked about his political stance on an issue, hes response was ,”Republicans buy sneakers too.” But, it’s not about the party that he was talking about. It’s about keeping that kind of stuff out of sports so that people can get away from the politics and unite as a nation even when it’s literally begging the player to cause separation of his fans. Which brings me to the authors next point, over the years he claims that elections aren’t about picking the right person anymore, he says,” Thanks to social media, we’ve moved from trying to pick the person we hoped the other side would like to pick the person we knew would upset the other side the most. If Michael Jordan shared his response on whatever the reporter wanted to get out of him, he would have just fueled the tensions between parties and split the whole sports fan base and even players just because he was idolized. The main point of what the author wanted to bring to his readers is that as an idol of an entire country and the world of sports it is better to defuse the flame rather than ignite it.