It’s not unusual for actors and musicians to endorse political causes and/or candidates here in the US: Tim Robbins, Barbara Streisand, Ted Nugent, and so on.
I’m truthfully not familiar with that being the case with professional athletes, at least during their careers. The only things I’m familiar with recently are LeBron James discussing gun control on social media, and rumors that Tom Brady may or may not be voting for Donald Trump.
Who are some professional athletes who have put their names behind political causes/candidates during their careers?
Carlos Delgado, the baseball player, was a bit upset about some political matters in Puerto Rico.
Athletes are discouraged from such things. Their employers consider it an unnecessary distraction and potentially a revenue-losing issue. While Mike Trout is an employee of the L.A. Angels, Tim Robbins is an employee of no one, essentially a self-employed contractor, and the evidence would rather strongly indicate that patrons of movies and TV shows care very little about the political positions of actors.
I doubt you’re going to find too many for a couple reasons.
Some professional athletes are their own business. e.g. tennis & golf stars. Vastly more are employees, albeit highly paid employees. e.g. NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL. Folks in the latter groups are subject to contractual terms that limit their ability to endorse causes their employer might not like or causes the employer thinks some of the paying audience might dislike.
Most of the entertainers who get excited about causes do so fairly late in their careers. IOW, after they’ve earned enough money they’re not in hock to the system. IIRC, Streisand was not politically active until she was over 50. And it was pretty controversial when she first poked into that arena. “Who the heck asked you?” was the almost universal reaction. Times have changed since then.
Athletes have much shorter active careers. And much less residual income. And except to fans of their sport, have much less name recognition. And fewer contacts in the world of mass media to get their word out.
A few years ago, Eli Manning of the NY football Giants agreed to appear at a fundraiser for the current mayor of Hoboken, NJ. Eli lives in the town, and supported the mayor in the election.
There is also a fundamental difference between being an actor and being an athlete. Being an actor is a much more nuanced profession. How you present yourself, your opinions, your choice of scripts, hell even your choice of fashion is all part of your professional image and career and level of success.
Being a professional athlete is sort of the opposite of this. Athletics is entirely results based. You either perform and advance or you don’t and you fail. That’s it. There’s no other factor that can make up for lack of physical ability.
That’s happened now and then here in PA; one athlete or another, still active, giving an endorsement to a local or state politician. But on a state-wide basis its a two-edged sword. Get endorsed by a Steeler and few Eagles fans will go near you.
Here in the UK, we’ve had two Olympic medallists become Conservative MPs and ministers (Seb Coe - middle distance running - and Colin Moynihan - rowing), and Coe has gone on to head up the London Olympics and now the International Athletics organisation. A previous leader of the Liberal Democrats, Menzies Campbell, had competed in the Olympics, though entirely as an amateur.
Alex Ferguson, the former manager of Manchester United, never made any secret of being an enthusiastic Labour supporter. Sol Campbell (who played for Arsenal) has made noises about trying to be the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London, but I don’t think that got anywhere. No doubt others have turned out at campaign events for their chosen party, but those that are most concerned about protecting their brand image probably think that’s a route to putting people off.
I think you’ll sometimes see them endorse someone after they retire from active sports, but not too many while they’re still playing. I’m having vague memories of Elway (?) doing some sort of endorsement. Not sure I can trust my memory on that though.
Michael Jordan declined to endorse a democrat because he said Republicans buy his shoes too. That was an example of a guy giving a reason for not jumping into politics. Most just stay away without a reason.
