{"id":806171,"date":"2026-08-07T22:28:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/806171\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:28:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:28:26","slug":"espn-app-to-stream-donald-trumps-2026-patriot-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/806171\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN app to stream Donald Trump’s ‘2026 Patriot Games’"},"content":{"rendered":"

In December of last year, United States President Donald Trump announced the first-ever \u201cPatriot Games\u201d as another arm in the year-long celebration of America\u2019s 250th birthday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the fall, we will host the first-ever \u2018Patriot Games,\u2019 an unprecedented 4-day athletic event featuring the greatest high school athletes, one young man and one young woman from each state and territory,\u201d Trump announced in an address from the Oval Office.<\/p>\n

After the announcement, the Patriot Games, which will feature high school students ages 14 to 17 competing in military-inspired challenges similar to boot camp circuits and other tests of strength and agility, faced heavy criticism for being a \u201creal-life Hunger Games<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the event is moving forward.<\/p>\n

The 2026 Patriot Games, for which Freedom 250 is the organizer, will stream on the ESPN app for three days beginning Sunday, August 9, before wrapping up with an hour-long ESPN on ABC primetime special on Thursday, August 13, at 9 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n

Per ESPN Press Room,<\/a> the Patriot Games, which are being held at SPIRE Academy in Geneva, Ohio, \u201cwill bring together exceptional young athletes ages 14\u201317 from across the United States, territories, and tribal nations to compete in a series of challenges designed to test strength, endurance, agility, teamwork, and perseverance. Winners will compete for a share of the $250,000 prize pool, providing transformative educational opportunities and helping them pursue their future goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The athletes \u201cwill be tested on the skills from the Presidential Fitness Test, go through a military-inspired boot camp circuit, and finalists will compete in an obstacle course designed to test strategy and skill.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laura Rutledge, Matt Barrie, Beth Mowins and Tom Hart will anchor ESPN\u2019s live coverage, while Jordan Rodgers, Sean Farnham, Ron Slay and Danielle Lawrie will serve as analysts. \u00a0Brooke Weisbrod and Marion Crowder, and Rutledge and Barrie also will co-host the closing primetime special.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In December of last year, United States President Donald Trump announced the first-ever \u201cPatriot Games\u201d as another arm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":806172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[12,88,192120,323267,342218,92],"class_list":["post-806171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-donald-trump","tag-entertainment","tag-espn-app","tag-espn-on-abc","tag-patriot-games","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}