> Core football audience is men 34-54. If young people don’t care about the anthem controversy, it doesn’t matter. <
My point is that those young people will eventually age into that core audience. So if the NFL is patient...
A bit off-topic, but I wonder if the NFL will even be around 10 years from now. Not because of the anthem protests, but because of the head injury lawsuits that are sure to come. A few of those lawsuits at the college and high school level will wreck the NFL feeder pattern.
There's also the fact that young people today are more Hispanic and Asian. Both groups are generally too small to play and aren't big football fans anyhow.