On ESPN’s 1 Big Thing, Scott Van Pelt talked about how, during such a volatile and ugly election cycle, he’s been really grateful for the sports bubble in which he works.

“Look at this. Look at all of this. everyone now and then I take inventory and I realize how ridiculous all of it is. I sit out here every night and we make a big deal out of sports. we convince ourselves how much it matters. there is, undeniably, an ability of sports to connect people. We saw that Friday in Chicago with however many million people celebrated a cubs title more than a century in the making.”

Van Pelt went on to say, though, that mostly, the whole point of sports is to argue with each other about sports. We watch shows where people argue with each other about sports.We fight about our teams. And that sports don’t actually matter.

Then Van Pelt said this:

“I’ve rarely been more thankful to hide inside this bubble of nonsense than now. At least all of this is fun, in theory, and it’s just a matter of who scored more, who won. I can tolerate any and all of your hostility about what you think about what I say and think because it’s all just sports. Truly, in the grand scheme, what’s it matter? Outside of our little bubble, yikes, it feels toxic. There’s so much anger leading up to and about the 20016 election, which is something that actually is important.”

He did add that at least we don’t have duels the way they did in Alexander Hamilton’s time (although at this point, I’d argue, anything seems possible). He ended with a suggestion for how to move forward after Tuesday night’s election:

“So let’s just yell at each other about sports, right? And convince yourself how much it all matters.”

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