The two biggest sporting events on the planet — the World Cup and the Olympics — are to be held in the USA during Trump’s second term. How will his presidency impact those, as well as other sports and athletes?
As soon as he took office, on January 20, Donald Trump signed a slew of executive orders. None directly addressed sports but some will undoubtedly impact them. Here is a look at how that might play out.
Though not outwardly a traditional sports fan, Trump was reportedly a big fan of the showbusiness stylings of wrestling in his childhood. In 1988 and 1989 Trump Plaza brought back-to-back Wrestlemania events to Atlantic City. In 2007, he took the stage as he sharpened his entertainment profile. Trump engaged in a storyline with WWE supremo Vince McMahon dubbed the “Battle of the Billionaires” that concluded with a victorious Trump shaving McMahon’s head in the ring. Trump is also in the sport’s hall of fame.
The rhetoric and showmanship so familiar from his political career were noticable even then. Now, Trump has benefitted from high-profile endorsements from wrestlers such as Hulk Hogan and the Undertaker. And McMahon’s estranged wife, Linda McMahon, is his nominee for secretary of state
for education. Given Trump’s loyalty to those who back him, WWE should be in a good spot.
Ultimate Fighting Championship boss Dana White was one of Trump’s biggest cheerleaders in the 2024 campaign. As with wrestling, Trump backed the combat sport, and its founder White, as early as 2001. It seems to have paid off. UFC has grown enormously in the last decade and has a huge, largely male, fan base that marries well with voters Trump needed.
“President Trump is a fighter. I’ve been saying this since 2015,” said White, when introducing Trump at the 2024 Republican National Convention. “I’m in the tough guy business, and this man is the toughest, most resilient human being that I’ve ever met in my life.”
UFC fighters have consistently backed Trump and the values he aligns himself with and the influence on UFC fans is likely to have helped the incoming president’s cause. Though White has said he is done with politics, his appointment to the board of Meta solidifies that organization’s ties with the Trump government and allows it greater access to promotion of its brand.
Awarded during Trump’s first term, the 2026 World Cup will be held mostly in the USA, with bordering Mexico and Canada also hosting matches. Organizers FIFA, through their president, Gianni Infantino, have long cozied up to Trump. Back in 2018, Infantino called Trump “part of the FIFA team” and congratulated him after his 2024 win, calling him “my great friend.”
In theory, Trump’s general disregard for international human rights standards should bring him into conflict with an organization with a stated committment to uphold those rights. In practice, FIFA follows the money, hence the uncontested awarding of the 2034 tournament to Saudi Arabia. Given that, and Trump’s grandstanding style, there is a significant chance he uses the focus of the 2026 World Cup to promote his government’s world view, at the expense of those who do not fit within it.
Relations with the cohosts may prove fraught too. An early Trump executive order to assign illegal immigration at the US-Mexico border as a national emergency has already caused some friction between the countries. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum did not directly criticize Trump’s decision but cautioned that “we have to behave as equals, never subordinate. Defend our sovereignty, our independence and defend Mexicans.”
Trump’s pre-election suggestion the USA could absorb Canada has not yet been set it motion and he resisted mooted 25% import duties on Canada and Mexico for now, though said they may happen on February 1. “If the president does choose to proceed with tariffs, Canada will respond – and everything is on the table,” said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday.
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That is also the fear for the Olympics, scheduled for Los Angeles in 2028. From the Nazi Games in
Berlin in 1936, through to the soft power, sportswashing exercises of recent Olympics in Russia and China, the biggest sports show on earth has long been used by leaders as a shop window for what they want the world to see.
Trump has been quick to claim credit for securing the 2028 Games but the International Olympic Committee has not been as fawning in its praise for him as FIFA, with a congratulatory social media post notable by its absence after his election. LA is a democrat-leaning city, which could well lead to friction and the stated aim of the Olympic movement to be inclusive seems to jar with Trump’s more conservative policies. As with the World Cup, Trump’s controversial positions on, well, just about anything, may divide sponsors.
Once such clash may well be played out in the culture war around transgender athletes. Trump falsely labeled two female Olympic champion boxers as men and pledged to ” keep men out of women’s sports” last year and signed an executive order on Day 1 of his new administration that means the US government will only recognize two genders.
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At a national and regional level, this will likely mean that trans athletes can only compete in the male or female sex category under which they are officially assigned in the US.
On the international scale, the IOC, for its part, has largely passed the buck on to the individual sports. In theory, that means transgender athletes could be selected to compete in LA in 2028 while other global sports are not bound by US government decisions But would Trump want to allow trans athletes to compete at the Olympics or World Cup in his country while the world is watching? And is there anything he could do about it?
Despite his ties to combat sports, it is golf that appears closest to Trump’s heart. As usual, both business and politics are at play in his relationship with the sport. He owns 17 golf courses, after buying his first in 1999. He plays regularly and claims to have won 18 club championships, which would make him a top-level amateur player. Such claims have been consistently disputed.
But Trump may well find himself at the center of the great divide in a sport that is particularly favored by the wealthy. Since the introduction of the Saudi-Arabia backed LIV Golf in 2022, the sport has been split, with many top players joining LIV for huge sums of money. Talk recently has been of the two rival tours coming closer together. World No. 3 Rory McIlroy recently suggested Trump could be the man to close the gap.
“Trump has a great relationship with Saudi Arabia. He’s got a great relationship with golf,” he said. “He’s a lover of golf. So, maybe. Who knows?”
The opportunity to boast of sealing a deal and “saving” a sport while strengthening ties with a key US ally could well be right up Trump’s street.
Trump’s interest in America’s biggest team sports is less pronounced than in golf, wrestling or WWE. But the “Taking the Knee” debate during his first term illustrates the value he sees in using them to drive political issues. At the time, Trump called on the National Football League to fire players who protested during the national anthem and then called the National Basketball Association “highly political.”
Both sports have significant cultural power and viewership in the United States. Trump has proved he’s not scared to back his judgement of their audience over the leagues.’ But will he try again?
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Edited by: Chuck Penfold
