A planned appearance by Donald Trump at the so-called "Patriot Games" featuring a smattering of high school athletes was greeted with skepticism by an ESPN employee assisting with the coverage.
According to a sardonic report from the Washington Post's Noah White, the president has gone from attending the World Cup to showing up at a competition with kids participating in "the lazy P.E. teacher favorites, kickball and dodgeball."
The Patriot Games is a White House-backed athletic competition organized by the nonprofit Freedom 250. The event features one male and one female representative from each state, along with participants from territories, military bases, and tribal nations. One hundred twenty athletes aged 14 to 17 are competing for $250,000 in prize money.
As the Post reported, the competition drew comparisons to the fictional "Hunger Games" when first announced, given its format of selecting male and female representatives from distinct regions for a nationwide competition.
According to the Post's White, there is little that is occurring that doesn't qualify as "weird."
"Here’s where things take a turn toward Bizarreville," White wrote. "ESPN is broadcasting each day of the competition, from 9 a.m. to roughly 7 p.m. on the ESPN app. Trump is expected to attend some of the events on Tuesday, and ABC will air the final in a recap on Thursday night. 'And, that,' one ESPN crew member said on-site Sunday, 'is weird.'"
An ESPN crew member present at the goings-on expressed concern about the arrangement. "It's difficult to not think ESPN is doing this in response to the investigation," the staffer said, referencing an FCC investigation into the Disney-owned network. "All of this just feels quite weird."
The selection process raised questions among participating families who described it as "murky."
Freedom 250 notified most competitors of their selection in late July, approximately two weeks before the event. Athletes scrambled to arrange travel without clear information about selection criteria.
According to the report, a Freedom 250 spokesperson declined to address selection methodology, stating only that the organization sought "America's next generation of leaders, competitors and champions," with the Post's White reporting, "What stood out to many upon arriving in Ohio, though, was that roughly 90% of the athletes participating were white," before glibly adding, "Weird doesn’t begin to cover that one."