Sports entertainment has a stigma of being mindless pop culture, in some cases glorifying violence for the sake of entertainment^[2], and has been criticized as such in popular media, often through lampooning: the film Idiocracy portrays a future where sports entertainment permeates the global culture: the president is an active champion professional wrestler and capital punishment consists of a combinationdemolition derby, monster truck event and gladiator duel, and is a highly popular television broadcast. Fiction with a dystopian future setting often portrays deadly futuristic games as popular sports entertainment, including the movie The Running Man, video games such as Smash TV and the Twisted Metal series, and the roleplaying game Shadowrun, which features Urban Brawl and Combat Biking

Many notable names in the USA openly admit enjoying certain forms of sports entertainment while many others have taken part in it or made paid contributions. Professional basketball player Shaquille O'Neal has a reputation as a long time pro-wrestling fan and attendsWWE events several times per year, and Floyd Mayweather expressed interest in fulfilling a WWE career after he retires from professionalboxing. Chicago Bears American football player Brian Urlacher, who admits to being a pro wrestling fan, made an attempt to leave football to wrestle for TNA Wrestling full time until the Chicago Bears forced him to stop.

The widespread popularity in the United States for the main form of sports entertainment, professional wrestling, has caused politicians to use it to reach voters, particularly young males. President Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain recorded video messages for broadcast on the WWE to encourage the audience of WWE Monday Night Raw to vote, and George W Bush did a prerecorded video for the WWE's annual Tribute to the Troops show.