By Mark Kenny

A version of this article was originally published by The Canberra Times.

A couple of years back, a stranger on social media alleged that I had… wait for it, “right-wing hair”.

This was obviously not one of our more astute readers, I consoled myself, before quietly wondering if there might be just a follicle of logic to the idea. Was my “do” at the time of being photographed, a little, um, severe?

Off-beat though it was, the comment connected with some incomplete thoughts I had been entertaining for a while about whether certain pastimes were right-wing or left-wing. Did some sports for instance, appeal more to people with individualist proclivities, while others drew in those of a collectivist mindset?

And what about authoritarians? Being rules based, sport has always attracted people with these black-letter tendencies – particularly to the officiating roles. I’ve known one or two basketball umpires whose attitude to questioning would have equipped them well as East German border guards.

The idea that art, religion, culture, and media can be right-wing is of course, not novel. These have been the tools of politics since Adam was a boy. Indeed the very fact that Adam “was a boy”, and Jesus too while we’re at it, is fundamentally political. The pivotal events of myth and history are so routinely enmeshed with male power as to be the natural order of things.

So natural that norms linger long after the evidence behind them is exposed as bogus.

We may encounter exceptions, yet broadly speaking, we still imagine our prime ministers and our airline captains as men.

Sports broadcasting is grappling with this transition at present. How to describe the burgeoning women’s cricket and football codes without making them sound subsidiary, like somehow less than the norm?

One advance has been to refer to the “men’s AFL” or “the men’s Ashes” rather than assuming that a news story refers to men by default unless otherwise specified.

Slowly but surely, language changes thinking. For now, cricket retains maiden overs but no longer has batsman so much as batters to go with its bowlers and fielders.

Still, old habits die hard.

Reporters slipped into the time-worn rut of referring to Novak Djokovic as “the World Number 1 tennis player” recently when there’s actually an Australian World Number 1? She’s called Ash Barty. 

A trickier question arises as to whether some sports are themselves inherently right-leaning. Is golf ever-so-slightly Ayn Rand, with its bleakly solitary contest between player and course, its costly equipment and membership, and its often exclusive access to the vast private land-holdings required? (If so, a less clichéd name for the clubhouse bar comes to mind – out with the “19^th Hole” and in with The Fountainhead?)

Equestrian events are the only Olympic ones I can think of where men and women compete directly which is very 21^st century, but this vestige of the landed gentry is hardly modern nor particularly accessible.

What about fusty old cricket, the stubbornly glacial game in which everyone fields and bats even if they’re selected only for their bowling? Is cricket inherently egalitarian in this sense at least?

Then there’s tennis – for me, an abiding love, and yet an increasing disappointment.

The Djokovic anti-vaccination circus cast the sport in a bad light, and not just for Djokovic’s bounding entitlement.

The Serb’s arrogant indifference to others reminds us that tennis is actually a pretty right-wing sport, populated by individuals rather than teams – most of them white and mega-wealthy - who are by-and-large, less socially outspoken than other codes.

The game’s mindset of towering exceptionalism saw the Australian Open cluelessly collide with public sentiment even before the tournament started. In the state where the pandemic sacrifice had been greatest.

Then, before that outrage had even faded, there was another tin-eared line-call when the organisers ejected people wearing “Where is Peng Shuai?” T-shirts. Apparently speaking up for human rights – even those of an international tennis player silenced by Beijing, was “political”.

Along with its chesty claim that 97 per cent of tennis pros are vaccinated (remember these people travel internationally for a living) the world tour features venues with clay courts and administrators with clay feet. The governing body has gone missing on many of the social, environmental, and attitudinal advances of the 21^st century.

Formula 1 which you would think is hyper-rich and hyper-male has left tennis behind. Not only did its several thousand-strong bubble of drivers, mechanics, media, officials, and cars, successfully move all around the globe during Covid – albeit skipping Melbourne – but no driver refused to get vaccinated or to mask up.

Moreover, cars carried the anti-racism slogan “we race as one”, and its dominant figure, and a man of colour, Lewis Hamilton led drivers to regularly take a knee in support for Black Lives Matter through 2020.

Along with Sebastian Vettel, Hamilton and others also champion environmental reform and continue to display rainbow colours on their crash helmets as a message to young fans about inclusion, diversity, and respect.

Globally codes like football and basketball have begun rising to these challenges also. The NBA has long championed social causes under the banner of NBA Cares, running extensive advertising campaigns, as well as clinics for disadvantaged children, and much more.

After some bad mistakes, the main football codes in Australia have also made purposeful statements against racism, domestic violence, and in favour of overall inclusion.

Like most corporates, Tennis Australia has an inclusion and diversity policy, but after a fortnight of watching the Open, you wouldn’t know it.

Djokovic was briefly held in a Melbourne hotel where 33 refugees and asylum-seekers have been detained for years in some cases. Tellingly, it never occurred to him speak out on their behalf even if only to put the pressure back on the federal government by exposing their treatment.

Such a gesture of solidarity might have proved pivotal for them.

A survey in the US a few years ago by Scarborough Research found that keen sports fans were likely to be more politically conservative than the general population and that some codes (like NASCAR and college football) were noticeably more favoured by right-of-centre voters.

But it also showed that levels of political literacy and engagement were lower across this enormous cohort.

Almost uniquely, sport engages these people, which means that sporting codes and their stars can engage them too. From David Pocock to Adam Goodes and Lebron James. From Cathy Freeman to Tayla Harris.

Tennis might want to ponder this. Banning discussion of the pressing moral questions of our time is a statement too. Just not a very enlightened one.

Mark Kenny is a political analyst for The Canberra Times. He is a professor at the ANU Australian Studies Institute and host of the Democracy Sausage podcast.