The fact that the biggest basketball player in a generation died is arguably a "new phenomenon."
There's plenty of stories that are upvoted that are covered by the news. It's not really just about learning that he died so much as having a thoughtful conversation around him and his legacy from this community's perspective.
Sometimes I see <xxx> has died and it's clearly technology related, and I will click the link, and discover that this person was great even if I never knew their names, and I feel enriched.
I certainly wouldn't feel enriched being led to a basketball website.
This just isn't a sports site.
Observing that fact doesn't suggest or imply that sports are bad in any way.
If you posted Bill Manning's obituary to a bunch of NBA fan sites, the users of those sites would no doubt consider those posts off-topic, and they'd be right in doing so. But that wouldn't make them "condescending toward computer science".
Actors and Musicians dying doesn't get flagged.