Colin Kaepernick in 2013. Daniel Hartwig.
The NFL anthem protest movement has made the news again, largely because of Donald Trump. During a speech last night for US Senate candidate Luther Strange, Donald Trump said that NFL owners should fire anthem protesters. Obviously, that has exploded into a wider counter protest with many people calling for boycotts.
What are my thoughts on this? Well for one, I think Trump is pretty much correct. Trump's main argument is that these anthem protests have been a huge ratings disaster for the NFL. This has been backed up by several surveys that say that the main reason people aren't watching is because of the anthem protest movement started by Colin Kapernick, who is now so toxic that he hasn't been hired even as a backup.
I personally watched less football last season because of the anthem protests. Though I watched most of the regular season, I skipped out on most of the playoffs and when the Superbowl happened, I took an overtime shift instead of watching it. I had even considered bailing on fantasy football this season even thought I have played the game for about a decade. Ultimately, I decided to stay in, not because of the NFL, but because I didn't want to disappoint the other people in the league. My passion for the sport itself has dwindled considerably.
Why? Well, for one I don't like seeing people disrespect the flag and the national anthem. I never liked watching the anthems anyways because I always felt that the NFL players didn't take it seriously except in the short period right after 9/11. But seeing people actively disrespect it, by taking a knee, as opposed to passively doing so, by scratching their ass or spitting, is too is a bridge to far. The anthem means something to me and I hate seeing people hate my country. So even when I did watch the NFL the past two seasons, I never watched the anthem anymore just on the chance of some idiot protesting it. I didn't want to give them any attention whatsoever and didn't want to get myself worked up.
The other main problem I have is that these people have no reason to protest whatsoever. The anthem protesters seem to be an offshoot of the Black Lives Matter movement, who I consider a racist separatist group. Their only goal seems to be to make this better for black people somehow by making it legal for them to kill cops and commit crime with no consequences. If they were protesting a more just cause, like black on black violence or drug use, then they would have gotten a better reception. But as it stands right now what we have is a racist movement disrespecting the anthem.
Plus, millionaire athletes are about the most privileged and spoiled people on earth. There have been so many cases, OJ Simpson being the most prominent case, where the cops and justice system went easy on NFL players just because they could play ball. They are not the people getting a hard time from the cops at all.
Finally, I am sick and tired of seeing the NFL being politicized. As someone who spends quite a bit of time on politics, I like to watch football to unwind and not think about things for awhile. The last thing I want is to be reminded of politics while watching football. It was one of the few things that I could use to escape the culture wars for awhile.
But the NFL has been hyping the politicization. They always seem to focus on the protesters when they take a knee and they allow the sports media to talk about almost nothing else. What they should do is what they do when some idiot runs onto the field. Cut the video feeds and let the talking heads talk about something else. Don't give the protesters any attention. The fact that they don't shows me that something else is going on.
So what, exactly, is the NFL doing? I think that they are attempting to expand who watches the NFL. Instead of just focusing on their core demographics, ie white males, they want to expand to other groups, most importantly white females. Their reasoning is that white females spend way more money and can be influenced by advertisers, so by expanding to them they can raise the rates on their adds. They seem to be doing this by trying to focus on narratives, and not the sports themselves. They think that by focusing on the protest story, they can get women and other minority groups to tune in. That's probably considered sexist and if it got out it would probably turn off women who actually watch football for the game (ie most of them who watch), hurting their ratings even more.
By doing so I don't think they have helped their ratings any at all because the kind of person that wants to see idiots like Colin Kaepernick aren't going to want to see the rest of the game. And they have alienated their key audience who otherwise would have stood by them through pretty much anything. In short this was always a terrible business move and if the NFL had been smart, they would have nipped it in the bud last year. They seemed to have righted the ship after Colin Kaepernick was essentially kicked out of the league, but now the issue has been brought right back to the spotlight. Is that fair? Probably, since there were still a few protests going on, but it's got to be about the worst case scenario for the NFL.
As for Trump, I see this as a very powerful political move. The anthem protest is extremely unpopular among his base and we have been waiting for leadership on the issue. It's about the lowest of low hanging fruit that a Republican politician could go for. His supporters love him for this and it doesn't come at much cost. Unlike the NFL, he realizes that the only people that will disagree with him on the issue are people that already hate him so it's a win win all around.
Trump also understands that by stirring the pot here, he will force yet another overreaction, not only from the NFL but from the left as well. He knows that there will probably be more players protesting which will cause more people to tune out. He also knows that the sports journalism world will turn on him as well, which fits into his anti-media narrative. The only thing worse than a spoiled athlete taking a knee is an overpaid and under-talented sports journalist complaining about something outside of sports.
I also think that this has a lot to do with the Alabama primary between Luther Strange and Roy Moore. Trump has backed Strange due to his loyalty but he has fallen in the polls behind Roy Moore thanks to Breitbart and other groups bashing Strange. By making this statement at a Strange rally he is going to get a lot more attention to Strange's election run. It might not be enough to get "Big Luther" elected, but it might help.
As for me, I think I will probably be "taking a knee" on the NFL this weekend. I really don't want to give any player that does this anymore attention than they have already gotten. And I want to send a message to the NFL that no matter what else they do, if they let people disrespect our anthem I don't want to watch them anymore. If after this weekend things return to normal, I will watch again, but if not, I can find other things to do with my time.
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