Colts players kneeling during the National Anthem. Reuters.
As you are most certainly aware, Mike Pence made the news today for walking out of a Colts game after several players knelt during the National Anthem. As expected this was huge news and was essentially a giant middle finger to the NFL. Doing so will put an enormous amount of pressure on the NFL to change course.
I'm fairly sure that this was a planned stunt by the White House. That's fairly obvious given that Trump hast taken credit for the idea. That being said, as far as stunts go, this is a highly effective one. By walking out, Pence has kept the issue alive and reminded millions of American that they should still be boycotting the NFL.I stand with @POTUS Trump, I stand with our soldiers, and I will always stand for our Flag and our National Anthem. pic.twitter.com/B0zP5M41MQ— Vice President Pence (@VP) October 8, 2017
I think there are signs that the NFL is starting to cave. A few teams have prevented players from kneeling and even Colin Kaepernick, somewhat pathetically, has said that he will stand again if someone gives him a job. It seems very clear that they want this issue to go away.
And I think the NFL is probably paying a high price for this continued protest. It's hard to get good numbers on the tv ratings. I have seen that some ratings are up and some are down, with the night games especially being hard hit. More importantly though NFL sponsors are threatening to pull out. Individual players have lost promotion deals and some of the bigger sponsors are putting pressure on the NFL.
As for me, I haven't watched a game since the issue returned with a vengeance a couple of weeks ago. In the past I averaged 2-4 games a week but since the kneeling began I watched less and since the scandal revived, I haven't watched a single game. The only reason I even pay attention to the NFL at all is because I still play fantasy football and to pay attention the political aspect.
I also think that the NFL is in a very difficult place. It's very clear that Trump and Pence aren't going to let this go. But I also think that if they force players to stand or forbid protest during the games they risk losing their more liberal viewers and making an enemy out of both the mainstream and sports media. And they have to consider that many of their viewers aren't coming back regardless of what they do. Though I would likely start watching again if the protests were to end, I think there are enough people out there that won't.
Still, I don't think the NFL has much of a chance of gaining back their viewers unless they put a stop to the anthem protests. And they are not only going to lose the people that support the president, they risk losing non-political fans as well. Like I said before, the NFL was supposed to be where Americans could go to get away from politics and that is no longer possible...
Before these"protests" the NFL was losing viewers. There are too many other things going on for people to dedicate their Sundays to all day football. Also, the networks have college games on all day Saturday and high schools football add to the televised football overdose. I really like watching NCIS on Tuesday but would not want to watch it everyday.
ReplyDeleteThe public is also sick of the bad behavior of the highly paid players being arrested. They are poor role models for our children.
I think the POS players who kneel during the National Anthem have provided a spike to this loss of viewers but did not initiate it.
Finally, kneeling during the National Anthem is a weak, ineffective protest. It borders on the ridiculous and only lasted this long because the media clowns are keeping it alive along with Trump/Pence.
If these players want to make an impact on the societal problems of Americans with dark skin, maybe they should spend their time and money working with those"down trodden" people in our large cities.
Thanks for the comment! I agree.
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