The easiest metric for the NFL to know if this is hurting their bottom line - along with the obvious reduction in TV viewership - would be their online store for NFL products.
The problem is SJW distort their numbers. Sponsors and NFL are running scared based on the agitation of a very small percentage (50,000 or less people) of the population. The leftists were anti-NFL already and didn’t even watch before the protests began.
Rush had some big campaign against him that turned out to be... one guy. One troll using multiple accounts. The true BLM / America Last crowd is a small, noisy bunch of losers.
League should just say, “All of our players will stand for the National Anthem or not participate in the game. Period.” Then enforce that. They should have done this from day one last year with Kapernick. They let him get away wearing ‘cops are pigs’ socks because they were afraid of things snowballing. They snowballed anyway.
Players can be replaced. Hundreds of people lined up to get a big paycheck to play a game. Players are expendable. They come and go.
Fans and their loyalty were the rare thing the NFL had. People watching games in rain and snow, buying gear, scheduling weddings and travel plays around games. The NFL threw away their most valuable asset trying to placate a few players with delusions of political grandeur. Big mistake.
This will be studied in business schools on how not to manage a crisis for years to come.
The rot actually began at Mizzou two years ago. SJW realized the weak link were the players. Tell them they are Uncle Toms and need to stand up to the man. Get the players to go full retard with social justice claims and that’ll alienate the fan base. That’s exactly what happened with Mizzou and it should have been a warning sign to the NFL and other sports of what was to come.
And it started in the NFL with the breast cancer stuff a few years ago. The SJWs got their foot in the door with that.
The National Anthem issue is the tip of the iceberg.
The NFL needs to stop all the “social justice” propaganda and other left-wing posturing.
That will require a major change in corporate culture.
Goodell’s head on a stick is the first place to start.