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🏅 The numbers are in, and the USA-Canada gold medal men’s hockey game drew 18.6 million viewers, an incredible audience considering the early morning timeslot.

🎥 Netflix has announced the next volume in its Untold documentary series, including entries on the JailBlazers and an infamous chess cheating controversy.

⚾ The Atlanta Braves are going solo on their own network that will be offered to providers and streamed directly to consumers.

⚾ There will be almost as many Savannah Bananas games this year on ESPN as there will be ones from Major League Baseball.

🏀 ESPN will not have the popular Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi altcast for this year’s women’s Final Four.

Stick to sports… shut up and dribble… pipe down and just do their sport and play for our country.

If only it were that easy.

We are living in unprecedented times, marked by the political division in this country. And much of that lies at the feet of the twice-elected, twice-impeached president Donald Trump. There is no escaping Trump in almost every walk of life, especially in sports, which he has turned into his own personal sandbox.

See the USA men’s hockey team that showed up at the White House and State of the Union on Tuesday. Trump’s invite and embrace (and FBI director Kash Patel partying in the locker room on the taxpayers’ dime) and his joke at the expense of the USA women’s hockey team have turned what was a sacred and unifying sporting moment into just another political football.

Suddenly, the gold medal heroes have to face the unfortunate truth that they are the latest pawns in a political game by the current administration, which seeks to boost their historically low approval ratings and endless array of scandals, corruption, cover-ups, and testing every governmental norm that exists by wrapping itself in the protective bubble of sports.

It’s ironic from a political movement that has long sought to take away athletes’ ability to speak out politically, telling them that their opinions can’t matter about real-life issues because they are only good at sports. But that enforced silence becomes something convenient when the tables are turned, and it’s the politicians who want to use sports for their benefit.

Perhaps that was the plan all along. Just take a look at the ease with which Team USA was transformed from a unifying force for good into an implicit endorsement of the current regime.

But the harsh reality is that this is nothing new, because almost every sport in America has been sucked into the political and societal culture wars, largely at the insistence of this White House.

NFL - The league had to endure months of endless debate about Bad Bunny on the Super Bowl halftime show, even seeing the far-right industrial complex introduce an “alternative halftime show” starring Kid Rock. Donald Trump has shown up in broadcast booths, wants stadiums named after him, and is hosting the NFL Draft in Washington DC.

College Football - Trump has gone to multiple games, especially in his voting base in the south, and cozied up to star coaches and players across the sport. He plays golf with Nick Saban and Urban Meyer and has tried to take an active role in governing the ungovernable in fixing the sport. And he hoodwinks college football podcasters into talking about anything but college football.

NBA - Trump has been a frequent critic of the NBA and its most popular stars, especially after its public support of the Black Lives Matter movement. This year, he commemorated the start of the NBA season by sharing the infamous video of him giving rolls of paper towels to hurricane victims like shooting basketballs.

MMA - Trump has long been welcomed in UFC by Dana White, and fighters openly express their gratitude towards him. The UFC-Trump relationship will culminate with the White House hosting an event this summer.

WWE - The ties between the Trump and McMahon families go back decades to Trump hosting WrestleMania IV and V in Atlantic City. Linda McMahon is part of Trump’s cabinet, and WWE executives have made multiple trips to the White House in support.

Auto Racing - Trump supporter Roger Penske is bringing IndyCar to Washington DC this year for a race through the nation’s capital. And like college football, Trump has appeared at NASCAR races as an overture to his voting base. After all, “Let’s Go Brandon” originated at a NASCAR race in Talladega.

Golf - Trump was center stage once again on the first tee at last year’s Ryder Cup, with American golfers doing his dance and welcoming him as part of the team. Although Trump’s efforts to reunite the PGA Tour and LIV Golf have failed, he will see the tour return to one of his courses at Doral later this year, showing the depth of his association with the sport.

Tennis - Trump made an appearance at last year’s US Open as the conversation turned to whether or not boos would be edited out of the broadcast.

Soccer - The less said about the recipient of the FIFA Peace Prize, the better.

Seriously, what sport is now safe from the ever-expanding political web? Every sport in America has become a political battleground. And it’s not the doing of the athletes, it’s the doing of the politicians who are looking to use them to their advantage.

So, where is the same energy for these individuals, in particular the President of the United States, to stick to politics? It has become as exhausting to be a sports fan as everything else in the culture has become in the last decade. And in this new climate, where everything seems inherently political, there is no end in sight. We only have to wait and see just what a circus this year’s World Cup will be.

So what escape is left for us? A new Australian Rules Football season is around the corner. Maybe Formula 1 can provide a safe haven? Or maybe we all have to become curling fans to find a proper respite. At least there won’t be any mentions of Donald Trump or Kash Patel at the Canadian curling championships that begin this weekend, just people watching like a hawk to see if Marc Kennedy double-touches his rocks again, the way sports should be.

Scott Van Pelt made the case that Mike Tirico is the very best in the business after his widely praised Olympic wrap-up.

CBS has revealed the Zac Brown Band’s “Give it Away” will be this year’s new March Madness anthem. Prepare yourselves accordingly.

Jon Stewart on the “super weird year hockey is having.”

“She’s a very attractive woman and she’s extremely bright, she went to Stanford. But if you listen to her post-participation interviews, she’s insufferable.” - Boomer Esiason is letting the Olympics takes continue to fly, sharing why he is not a fan of Eileen Gu.

“At my request, I will take a step back from working the first two weeks of March Madness.” - Ernie Johnson says it was his idea to reduce his NCAA Tournament workload.

“I do think what made me good in baseball was my preparation, my attention to detail. And I don’t think that I’m going to do something like this and not carry those same characteristics into any sort of TV work.” - Joey Votto shared why he hopes to emulate Kenny Smith in his TV career.

“America, when you talk about globalizing the sport, certainly, money has a lot to do with it. But the other part in globalizing your brand is whitening the sport too.” - Stephen A. Smith echoed Kevin Durant with his thoughts on the racial dynamics of today’s NBA.

The UFL will explore some fundamental rule changes this year that will have the NFL closely watching, including four-point field goals.

If you think it sounds cartoonish and gimmicky for the NFL to conceive of such a wild thought, then you should pay closer attention. The NFL has been working closely with the UFL, especially when it comes to the spring football league serving as a training ground for potential rule changes. Case in point: the dynamic kickoff rule that came to the NFL this year (the one loathed by Donald Trump, speaking of politics in sports) originated in spring football.

Former NFL officiating executive and current Fox Sports rules analyst Dean Blandino serves as the UFL's VP of officiating and continues to work closely with NFL counterparts. The relationship between the two leagues is a healthy one. And if the UFL is implementing a rule change, odds are it’s because the NFL wants to see its practical effects in real life.

All of the rule changes for this UFL season are with increased entertainment in mind - the banning of the tush push, banning punts inside opposition territory (aside from the last two minutes of each half), field goals over 60 yards being worth four points, and a tweak to the dynamic conversion attempts for PATs ranging from one to three points.

As an entertainment product, the NFL really needs no artificial boosts. Their dominance in American sport and culture is unparalleled. But the league knows that it can’t rest on its laurels if it wants to maintain that vaulted place.

So the UFL can try out getting rid of one of football’s least exciting and most controversial plays. They can experiment with four-point field goals and dynamic PATs that open up infinitely more strategic options. And if it blows up in their face, then it won’t be the NFL’s problem. And if it revolutionizes the game like the three-point line did for basketball, then the NFL will reap the benefits.

At this point, only the tush push rule seems likely to be implemented in the NFL soon, given the opposition to the play. Field goal kickers have become so accurate from so long that perhaps the 60-yard rule can give added excitement to some kicks. Although if you asked most fans, they would probably prefer the standard scoring and narrowed uprights to make it more challenging the way it used to be.

Whatever your thoughts about the rule changes, at the very least, it gives one more reason to tune into UFL games this spring… aside from the hardcore gamblers who are going to sweat the over/under in a Columbus Aviators-Birmingham Stallions game, of course.