Character Analysis
Thoroughly Unsavory
Sport (his real name is Matthew Higgins) is a totally, totally disgusting character. Yes, he's even grosser than Travis, even though he has a squeaky-clean, Leave It To Beaver-style nickname. Sport? Seriously? What sport does he play, exactly.
Ugh. Don't tell us. We don't want to know.
Sport's the pimp who controls Iris, a twelve year old girl, and he even uses that fact in the obscene sales pitch he gives to Travis.
"If you want to save yourself some money, don't f*** her. Cause you'll be back here every night for some more. Man, she's twelve and a half years old. [...] You can do anything you want with her […] But no rough stuff, all right?"
After all this repugnance, Sport's "No rough stuff, all right?" comes off as bitterly ironic. (How nice—he wants to protect the twelve year old he's so brutally raping and exploiting.) He's a really filthy guy—the very incarnation of everything Travis hates: pimp, junkie, degrader of human life. Travis tells Iris that Sport's a "killer" too, which she denies (in fact, Travis is the one who will end up being a killer).
Yet, while he can offer customers that gross speech about Iris, he can turn around and smooth talk her, implicitly telling her he loves her and that he won't leave her:
"You miss your man, don't ya? I don't like to be away from you either. You know how I feel about you. I depend on you. I'd be lost without you. Don't you ever forget that—how much I need you. Come to me baby. Let me hold you. When I hold you close to me like this, I feel so good. I only wish every man could know what it's like to be loved by you... God, it's good so close. You know at times like this, I know I'm one lucky man. Touchin' a woman who wants me and needs me. That's the way you and I keeps it together."
Blegh. Bleghity blegh blegh. This about as manipulative, disgusting and unbelievably sociopathic as it gets.
When you contrast this with the other speech, it seems almost more obscene, given that it's such obvious emotional manipulation: taking a young girl and forcing her into a state of sexual servitude and dependency. This totally insincere sweet-talk is also in stark contrast to the moment when we see Sport yank Iris out of Travis' cab and call her "b****" a ton of times.
Were You Really Sad to See Him Go?
Finally, in the end, Travis murders Sport. Was this just? Not according to the judicial system—or, wait. Actually the judicial system lets Travis get away with this, somehow, along with the two other murders that occurred in the process of liberating Iris. Apparently, most people in New York are totally fed up with exploiters and gangsters like Sport—they want them dead, and they don't care if someone needs to go beyond the law to do it.