Dan Le Batard Believes Patrick Mahomes and Other Athletes Are Obligated to Push Back Against Trump on Protecting College Sports

Dan Le Batard Urges Patrick Mahomes to Publicly Defend College Sports Law, but Mahomes Has Long Avoided Political Stances

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Former ESPN anchor Dan Le Batard is adamant about the standards for when athletes should and shouldn't comment on matters outside of sports.

"Speak up for what I agree with or shut up and play ball" is his standard.

On Monday, Lou Batard shamed Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes for not publicly speaking out against the college sports law, which is backed by President Donald Trump and his administration.

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"Patrick Maumes, take your hat off your a--. Get ahead here," an emotional Le Batard shouted on YouTube. "You have a lot of power... do you want to compete in senior games or do you just want to play football?"

To answer that question, Mahomes just wants to play football.

After the 2024 shooting at the Chiefs' Super Bowl parade, Mahomes led not with activism but with action. He contributed to a fund for the victims and visited some of the injured in the hospital.

He later explained in a Time magazine profile that he didn't think it was his place to change public opinion on complex political issues like gun control.

"I'm continuing to educate myself," Mahomes said of the matter. "I don't want to give a quick answer and waver on something that takes a lot of training to actually learn. But I know we have to find a way to stop these things."

Likewise, Mahomes declined to endorse a 2024 presidential run.

"I don't want to pressure anyone to vote for a president," he told the newspaper. "I want people to use their voice, whoever they believe in. I want them to investigate."

Perhaps his restraint is partly why the Chiefs passed the Dallas Cowboys as the NFL's leading national lottery pick. Like Michael Jordan, Mahomes is polarizing because of his greatness, not because he has deliberately divided his audience along political lines.

Jordan and Mahomes are arguably the two greatest individual draws in the recent history of their respective sports. This is not a coincidence.

More importantly, Patrick Mahomes doesn't owe anyone an opinion on the law. He owes nothing to anyone except his actions.

The fun part is that if Mahomes had spoken in support of the bill, Le Batard would have almost certainly called for his silence. He then calls on the media to hold Mahomes accountable. When Jackson Dart introduced President Trump on stage, Lou Batard responded, Aaron Rodgers questioned the efficacy of Covid vaccines, and various UFC fighters embraced Trump.

Le Batard presents his personal political preferences as universal moral imperatives. When an athlete wants to speak, he considers silence as cowardice. He considers political expression irresponsible when he wants an athlete to remain silent.

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He recently made headlines for accusing ESPN of favoring white talent over black talent. The evidence hardly supports this claim. Based on ESPN's recent hiring trends, layoffs, promotions and airtime allocations, it's hard to argue that white talent gets preferential treatment.

Meanwhile, even a cursory glance at Le Batard's own media company, Meadowlark Media, suggests that if white privilege still exists somewhere in sports media in 2026, it apparently has an office in Miami.

Elsewhere, Le Batard repeatedly speaks of his supposed intolerance for violence against women. However, he did the first interview with Kamala Harris' husband, Doug Amhoff, after Amhoff was accused of assaulting an ex-girlfriend. Le Batard never asked him about the accusation. not once Instead, he asked Amhoff "what love feels like."

Le Batard later urged other companies not to hire people accused of domestic violence. He then hired Howard Bryant, who was arrested after beating and strangling his wife in an incident authorities said was witnessed by others.

OutKick has asked Le Batard directly about these inconsistencies on multiple occasions. Despite repeatedly talking to me on his show, he has yet to respond to us.

At this point, one must consider whether there is a serious problem with Le Batard. I am not joking. There are shades of Keith Olbermann in him.

Both men built their reputations in part on their extraordinary intelligence in an industry lacking in intellectual depth. Both were sharp, original, and could make more sophisticated arguments than many of their peers.

Something changed. Something bad has happened to them.

Whether regretting the past, life's accumulated tragedies, years of manufactured hysteria, or an inability to process life in a country where almost half of the electorate still rejects their worldview, Le Batard and Olbermann are increasingly consumed by the people they hate.

The result is perpetual anger. They appear anxious and bitter, increasingly unable to recognize the hypocrisy underlying their interpretation.

This goes a long way toward explaining Le Batard's outrage over the College Sports Act.

Trump and his administration support this law. Thus, opposition to it becomes part of Le Battar's moral framework. A neutral observer would hardly notice Mahomes' decision not to participate in the debate. This is not his battle. Le Batard sees it differently. In his view, silence is complicity.

That's how he gets to the point of accusing an NFL quarterback of dodging "adult games" because he didn't publicly lobby against a federal rule in the middle of the football season.

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