Sports and Politics Quotes

I think that sports, particularly football, gave me an opportunity to be out front, to be a leader, which helped me later on, when I got into politics.

But the rising chorus urging ESPN to change its stripes is missing something: The intersection of sports and politics is natural. And the left-wing lean of ESPN is inevitable. Conservatives bothered by the slant should stop hand-wringing and start their own network.

Politics and football don't mix.

If you’re an athlete and you tend to be political, you tend to alienate half the public.

I saw a survey and it is that NFL fans are fed up with listening to players talk about politics.

I think football is football, politics is politics.

One of my favourite contemporary fiction writers is a Texan, Ben Fountain. His extraordinary novel, Billy Lynn's Long Half-Time Walk, all takes place within the half-time show at a Dallas Cowboys football game. No one has better summed up the American appetite for spectacle, the link between sports and politics, and the absolute madness of George W. Bush's Iraq War.

I've been a bit surprised, and encouraged, by the NBA's support for athletes that speak out. Compared to the NFL, it's night and day.

Nixon was a crook, of course, but he was also a rabid football fan - and he knew the game, which still astounds me, but I have always had a soft spot for him because of it.

Sport in itself has this power. If you are a poet or a singer, people gravitate. I may not be in the same category, but I will make a comparison with Bob Marley. So it isn't just cricket where social commentary plays a huge part.

Who's to say because you're just a basketball player, or you are a basketball player, who's to say you can't chime in on other subjects or other important topics?

I think the Olympic Games have been married to political statements. If I go back to Berlin in 1936, it was very politically orientated then, just with the Nazis.

I don't think politics and sport should be mixed up.

Amazingly, I think that a lot of times athletes are - are kind of in a position where other think they shouldn't weigh in on certain social topics.

I hate it when politics play too large part in the sport.

Politics should stay out of the stadium.

I don't believe that politics has to be part of the sporting world.

It's tricky when you have people tuning in to hear about sports, not politics, but I think in issues where they intertwine, that is not something 'First Take' is not going to shy away from and potentially will go to another level than another sports show.

Athletes aren't allowed to have an opinion. It's tough. Athletes are evolving right in front of our eyes. You see athletes who are politicians, etc., and still, we're told to shut up and dribble.

It is a mistake to mix politics and sport.

It's a little bit of a shame when I see some fans saying, 'Can you do me a favor and not ask questions to the fighters or the athletes about political stuff, cause we don't care about their opinions, we don't want to hear that, this is not that platform, if we wanted to hear that we would turn to CNN or FOX or ABC,' or whatever the case may be.

You could easily do a book of Marshawn Lynch's quotes, which have a quite serious political pushback. I think he's really amazing.

A lot of leftists think it is soccer's fault that people don't think, while most rightists are convinced that soccer is a proof that people think with their feet.

I applaud the professional athletes using their platform to voice their opinions.

I had been unaware that baseball was a Republican sport.