Just chiming in to say I think this is dead on. Come for the sports talk but then get your fill of entertainment, food/travel, and in particular, news updates (and on the rare occasion in the mood for politics, I knew where to find it). That is what made the site great for a long time. It was an incredibly efficient way to catch up current events in between calls. I spend a lot less time here than I used to because the 10% of posters are completely incapable of not letting their strong political feelings infect every thread they participate in and I just log out.
My personal view is that social media algorithms have completely broken people's brains on both sides of the aisle and it infects everything. Hell, I feel it personally when I start scrolling my phone (and as a moderate my algorithm manages to make me pissed off at both sides). One idea would be that if you decide to post in the Cloak Room, you are just locked out of DT. But then the problem would be DT would just become Fox "news" over time. I don't think there really is a fix.
BTW - this isn't unique to this board. I've used my buddy's OB account for like 15 years from time to time. Similarly, there are lot of experts there that make non-sports threads (investments, etc.) good reads, but they have the opposite problem as that board leans heavy MAGA so you can't stop the MAGA idiots from ruining any off topic thread. It's just a societal problem at this point. Politics has completely overwhelmed certain people to the point that it impacts virtually every single aspect of their life. What's funny is, I know several people like that in real life, but when I manage to see them in person they are largely completely capable of having normal conversations. It's social media algorithms and the internet that have turned everyone insane online in particular.