Updated: 5:15 P.M. 
 
 Senate Republican leaders have sent letters warning six professional sports leagues not to provide the Obama administration any assistance in promoting Obamacare. 
 
 The letters, dated June 27, warn the chiefs of the National Football League, Major League Baseball, National Basketball Association, National Hockey League, Professional Golf Association and NASCAR that partnering with the administration to publicize the benefits of the health care law would damage their reputations. 
 
 “Given the divisiveness and persistent unpopularity of this bill, it is difficult to understand why an organization like yours would risk damaging its inclusive and apolitical brand by lending its name to its promotion,” wrote Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Minority Whip John Cornyn (R-TX). 
 
 The letters come days after Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said she’s spoken with the NFL about potentially partnering to let people know the benefits of the Affordable Care Act ahead of the implementation of its major components. (She said there was no deal yet.) The Republican senators rattled off a slew of conservative arguments against the law, stressing polls that signal its unpopularity with the public. 
 
 The letter also suggests the Obama administration could be threatening the pro sports leagues to extract support for Obamacare: 
 
 We have long been concerned by the Obama Administration’s record of using the threat of policy retaliation to solicit support for its policies or to silence its critics. Should the administration or its allies suggest that there will be any policy consequence for your decision not to participate in their outreach efforts, we urge you to resist any such pressure and to contact us immediately so that we may conduct appropriate oversight. 
 
 Republicans have been working feverishly to gum up implementation of the Affordable Care Act. And they’ve launched investigations into HHS and Sebelius for asking health industry groups to help promote the law. The senators warned the pro sports leagues that joining forces with the administration on an issue like this would be unprecedented. 
 
 “It is difficult for us to remember another occasion when major sports league took public sides in such a highly polarized public debate,” McConnell and Cornyn wrote. “Yet given this administration’s public request of your assistance in promoting this unpopular law, we felt it important to provide you with a fuller accounting of the facts before you made such a decision.” 
 
 An HHS spokesperson declined to comment on the letters. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 
 
 Democratic aides point out that it’s nothing new for political leaders to partner with private organizations on behalf of their constituents, citing as one example the 2007 partnership between Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and the Boston Red Sox to promote Romneycare. McConnell and Cornyn argued in their letters that there were “key differences” between the two laws, observing that one was bipartisan and the other passed on a partisan vote. 
 
 Meanwhile, House Republican Study Committee Chairman Steve Scalise (R-LA) sent letters dated Thursday to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and NBA Commissioner David Stern seeking answers to three questions about what HHS has asked of them with regard to “promotion or implementation” of Obamacare. Scalise asked them to provide details. 
 
 “Given the harmful impact on millions of your fans and the people of southeast Louisiana, coupled with the Obama Administration’s failure to meet the deadlines established to stand up their own law, I would caution you against being coerced into doing their dirty work for them,” Scalise wrote. “Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or if you’re uncomfortable responding in writing due to concerns about inappropriate or unwelcomed pressure from the Administration to cooperate with the implementation of [Obamacare].” 
 
 LATE UPDATE: 
 
 NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told TPM the league has “no plans” to engage on Obamacare. 
 
 “We have responded to the letters we received from members of Congress to inform them we currently have no plans to engage in this area and have had no substantive contact with the administration about PPACA’s implementation,” McCarthy said in an email. 
 
 Asked about the suggestion in the letters that the administration may be threatening or pressuring the NFL, McCarthy responded, “Not correct. [Q]uite simply, the NFL, NBA and others were contacted by the administration. We made no commitments nor discussed any substantive details with the administration.” 
 
 McConnell’s spokesman Michael Brumas, asked to elaborate on the alleged threat, told TPM the senator “is not alleging the administration has threatened or pressured the sports leagues. See the next to the last graf of the letter which says ‘Should the administration,’ etc.” 
 
 McConnell Cornyn Letter to NFL Obamacare ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Why America's sports stars are taking a knee 
 
 President Donald Trump's swipes at the National Football League players' protests were nestled in the middle of a nearly hour-and-half-long speech at a rally in Alabama. 
 
 The crowd cheered enthusiastically - as they did for his taunts directed at Hillary Clinton, Kim Jong-Un and Senator John McCain, and boasts about his election victory and the beautiful, see-through wall he will build along the US-Mexico border. 
 
 It was the NFL comments that gained traction, however, sparking outrage and condemnation from sports stars and franchise owners. NFL games on Sunday were the setting for dozens of player protests of various kinds. 
 
 Meanwhile the president, as is his habit when challenged, leaned in to the controversy, firing off a flurry of tweets on the topic. 
 
 "NFL attendance and ratings are WAY DOWN," read one presidential missive. "Boring games yes, but many stay away because they love our country. League should back US." 
 
 The president seems almost to take pleasure in fanning the flames of controversy, going so far as to call for a boycott of the US's most popular sports league. 
 
 But why? Here are a few possibilities. 
 
 It's strategic 
 
 Things have been rough for the president recently. 
 
 Once again it appears that Congress is going to be unable to repeal and replace Obamacare health insurance reforms, despite the president's assurances that doing so would be "easy". 
 
 That transparent wall he touted? It currently seems more likely that the president will strike a deal with Democrats to enshrine protections for undocumented immigrants who entered the US as children - a move anathema to portions of his conservative base - than get funding from Congress to build the border barrier. 
 
 The candidate the president was in Alabama to boost, Senator Luther Strange, could go down to defeat on Tuesday, representing an embarrassing rebuke to the president from his most loyal supporters. 
 
 His approval ratings may be climbing, but there's been a lot of bad news recently - and more could be coming. 
 
 So what better way to change the subject than to restart a highly charged cultural debate about the appropriateness of political protests against the national anthem; one that allows the president, much to the delight of his base, to sing the praises of the US military and wrap himself tightly in the red, white and blue? 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images 
 
 It's personal 
 
 Before Donald Trump was a politician or even a reality television star, he was a professional football owner. The league was the star-crossed USFL in the mid-1980s, and the team was the New Jersey Generals. 
 
 Then real-estate magnate Trump bought the team in 1984 and helped encourage the USFL, which was then playing its games in the spring, to move to the autumn, where it would go head-to-head with the NFL. 
 
 The NFL crushed the fledgling USFL. Mr Trump unsuccessfully tried to sue the larger league for antitrust violations, many teams went bankrupt, and the USFL eventually folded. 
 
 Fast forward to 2014, and Mr Trump had another run-in with the NFL, when he tried to buy the Buffalo Bills team. He was outbid by an energy-sector billionaire and - in a move that should now be quite familiar - took to Twitter to vent his anger. 
 
 "Even though I refused to pay a ridiculous price for the Buffalo Bills, I would have produced a winner," he tweeted. "Now that won't happen." 
 
 He also called NFL games "boring" and "too soft", adding that he was glad the deal didn't go through. 
 
 In other words, Mr Trump has a longstanding grudge against the NFL - and if there's one thing we know about the president, it's that he likes to settle old scores. 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Some of the Detroit Lions dropped to their knee on Sunday 
 
 It's impulsive 
 
 When talking about Donald Trump's actions, it's often tempting to find order where only chaos exists; to ascribe grand schemes when there's an easier, simpler explanation. 
 
 The president isn't playing three-dimensional chess and devising plans within plans. 
 
 With his NFL outburst, the president could once again be reacting to events, not directing them. On Friday night he gave a long speech filled with everything that was bubbling through his mind at that particular moment. 
 
 If the media had focused on his dismissal of the Russia investigation as a hoax or his insistence that winning the popular vote in the presidential election last year would have been easy if he had tried, then that's what the president would have spent the weekend tweeting about. 
 
 Instead, here we are, on day four of a furore over players kneeling and flags flying, free speech protections and employee obligations. 
 
 If there is no grand strategy, then modern American politics is like a spinning top. There's no way of telling where it's going to go next.
– The latest political skirmish over ObamaCare comes in the unlikeliest of places: the world of sports. As in, the NFL has found itself compelled to issue a statement saying it doesn't plan to help the White House promote the plan. How did it come to this? As Talking Points Memo explains, it started when health chief Kathleen Sebelius suggested earlier this week that the Obama administration would enlist the help of the NFL and its star athletes to spread the word about the coming changes. That prompted top Senate Republicans to write a letter to the NFL, Major League Baseball, the NHL, and other leagues strongly suggesting that they butt out because ObamaCare is characterized by such "divisiveness and persistent unpopularity," reports the Washington Post. The NFL's response? "We currently have no plans to engage in this area and have had no substantive contact with the administration" about the new law, says a spokesman. The NHL and MLB also said they had no plans to help. The flap speaks to the coming PR war ahead of the law's 2014 rollout, notes the Post.