Posted on 05/26/2018 5:04:32 AM PDT by Kaslin
It took two years, boycotts by fans, declining TV ratings, growing alarm among advertisers, a drop in the sale of gear and especially a public shaming by President Trump, but the owners of NFL teams have finally decided their players will not be allowed to kneel or make other protests during the playing of the national anthem.
The NFL Players Association claims the owners' decision violates the players' "free speech rights." No it doesn't. Players are perfectly free to protest anywhere, anytime they wish, just not at the start of games for which the owners pay them large amounts of money they are unlikely to make elsewhere. If you think free speech rights are valid wherever and whenever one wants to speak, try protesting something on company time where you work and see how long you keep your job.
The NFL is a business. The business is sports. If any other business is hurt by the behavior of its employees, management either requests a change in behavior, or sacks the employee for the sake of the bottom line and the morale of other employees and customers.
If players take the owners' check, the owners have a right to lay down certain rules, as in football. Players who want to make a difference beyond symbolic protests, which they say raises awareness about racial injustice and other inequalities, can use their financial resources and celebrity to invest in the lives of people they regard as victims. Perhaps they could pay for the private education of children trapped in failing public schools or provide job training and child care for single mothers who rely on government assistance. Some players do go beyond protests with their good works. The protesters and others can follow their example.
With its decision to order players to stop the demonstrations, the NFL isn't finished. Their next issue should be how their cheerleaders are treated. It's been a long time since NFL cheerleaders actually led cheers. Today, they shake their barely clothed bodies in suggestive ways while male fans who have consumed too much beer can ogle them.
Cheerleaders have recently gone public with complaints that some NFL teams encourage their participation in off-the-field events, which subject them to unwanted sexual advances. As The New York Times reported last month, "... performing at sporting events is only a small part of their job description. They are also required to fulfill what often is the unsavory side of the job: interacting with fans at games and other promotional events, where groping and sexual harassment are common."
The cheerleaders told the newspaper that team officials with the NFL, as well as those associated with the National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Hockey League (NHL), are aware of the problem, but have done little or nothing to stop it. They should. Sexual harassment is illegal and with the #metoo movement, clearly the "rules" and level of tolerance for such inappropriate behavior have changed.
While skimpy outfits might encourage certain men to think they are invited to make advances toward women, and while these cheerleaders might wish to dress more modestly at off-field events (which they should not be forced to attend) that does not absolve men from sexually harassing them.
NFL owners have done well by banning protests during the national anthem. They should now act to stop the harassment of their cheerleaders. And it shouldn't take two years to do it.
I have been surprised how little I miss football and how much more I enjoy my Sundays.
It may be through but I’m through with it.
To titillate the largely male audiences. To provide skin scenery. To give people something to watch other than a boring sport played by overpaid babies and racists. And to give the "social justice" crowd one more thing to complain about.
I guarantee the owners cave before the season starts. But since I stopped watching the games last year, all I do now is munch on my popcorn and watch this spectacle, laugh and thank God for my SEC team.
As a sports fan, I done with the thug league.
And I’ve viewed 0% of the NBA all season and 0% of the playoffs.
Same here. Lifelong boycott. NFL are cowardly scum.
level IQ players
—
Over half these animals would be in prison if not for being pampered football stars.
Less than 10% would have ever went a day to college if not for football.
$crew the NFL billionaire owners, cry baby millionaire National Felon League players and ESPN, Disney and ABC with two simple moves. Also, besides saving a lot of money each week and get to know your family on Sundays.
#1. Cut your cable or satellite provider. Use an internet provider to stream programs. This will save you anywhere from $100/month to over $200 per month.
Sling Blue costs $25 per month and gives you access to 45 live channels. However, Blue does not include every Orange channel by default; there’s no Disney, ABC and no ESPN, for starters. Feb 22, 2018
#2. Go to Sling Blue for about $25 per month. Sling Blue does not carry ESPN, Disney nor ABC. So these pro NFL thugs do not get a single penny from you, every month.
Or you can do nothing besides whine about the NFL thugs and waste your money and time on your NFL addiction.
They needn’t go out of their way on my account. I’m so digusted by these spoiled rich phony bastards I have no desire whatsoever to watch their lame as playing!!!
If Twitter is now a public forum in which President Trump can’t block people, shouldn’t an NFL game be considered the same? Blocking player’s political statements should not be allowed. Let the players kneel. Let the NFL continue to nosedive.
“...Too late for me too...”
Ditto - I never actually boycotted the games; I lost all interest in watching the pampered primadonna pissants prancing around after one good play as though they just won the super bowl.
Three and a half hours to see sixty minutes is not a good use of time.
It is AFAIC.
“It took two years, boycotts by fans, declining TV ratings, growing alarm among advertisers, a drop in the sale of gear and especially a public shaming by President Trump, but the owners of NFL teams have finally decided their players will not be allowed to kneel or make other protests during the playing of the national anthem.”
Sorry Calvin, but it’s none of the above, or they would have dealt with it MONTHS ago. It is Season Ticket sales now tanking. No, we didn’t get over it. And no, half measures won’t work, not at all, they’ll just keep it going. It’s even too late for FULL MEASURES, such as suspensions. At this point PUBLIC APOLOGIES are needed by the players and the owners (along with the owners firing their Metrosexual ‘advisors’, but that’s another issue). And, since I can never imagine the players apologizing and can barely imagine the owners apologizing (and only when they’re facing Bankruptcy Court), it’s over. That simple.
Consider the case of JC Penny, discussed here this week. They started the IDIOCY of trying to pander to 2% of their customers while pissing off much of the other 98%. They figured they’d ‘make a statement’ by showing two pedophiles with a small black kid in a ‘Father’s Day’ circular.
They later replaced the idiot running the company and have now figured out that there are more straight people than gays, much more, and the relatively small number of gays don’t even shop there, they go to ‘boutique’ type stores instead - virtually their ENTIRE customer base was family-oriented people. But guess what, they NEVER apologized, and most people like me, don’t check back with them on a weekly basis to see if they’ve cleaned up their act. So they’re not getting their customers back...and are getting closer and closer to liquidation. Their only hope is to make a POSITIVE STATEMENT, both apologizing to their customer base and saying they are again family-oriented. But will they, will they risk the bad press just to stay in business (but possibly prosper too...lots of us out here waiting for this type of statement) - I DOUBT IT. They’ll ‘play it safe’ and go bankrupt instead.
“The SEC schools and most other college teams do not take the field or stand for the anthem. How is this different from the NFL not standing for the anthem?”
They never took knees - in other words, they were never in our faces, telling us cops are murders...HUGE DIFFERENCE.
They got lucky, because, yes, they too probably would have taken knees and killed off their fan base too.
“I agree with you! Haven’t watched a game in almost 3 years now (this will be the fourth season.) Tired of the NFL’s stupid bullshit. It started with all the rules changes (what constitutes a “catch”) and culminated with the players kneeling. Just had enough. Don’t want to watch it anymore.”
I starting tuning out the NFL about then too, when they started wearing pink. Wearing pink?
REAL MEN DON’T WEAR PINK - that simple.
From the article:
"...the owners of NFL teams have finally decided their players will not be allowed to kneel or make other protests during the playing of the national anthem."
Not appearing with the team on the field for the national anthem is an obvious form of protest, and just as unpatriotic as kneeling. Only an idiot or a panicked owner would have us think otherwise.
“But why is it OK for the college players to hide in the locker room?”
If they’ve been doing it before Conlin started acting up, then they’re NOT doing it to make a political statement.
...and personally, I don’t know the history of it, but I suspect that they have been doing it for years, maybe decades - and no, they’re not hiding either.
“Not appearing with the team on the field for the national anthem is an obvious form of protest, and just as unpatriotic as kneeling. Only an idiot or a panicked owner would have us think otherwise.”
The owners know full well that the ‘late arrivals’ to the field will be noticed and tallied, and bood as they do come out.
What they THINK is that we will be ok with that, because as long as we don’t SEE them kneel, we won’t know they’re protesting. To put it another way, they’re not total idiots, they think WE are total idiots.
...expect the rules to again change.
“The SEC schools and most other college teams do not take the field or stand for the anthem. How is this different from the NFL not standing for the anthem?”
Don’t forget the colleges accept government money for tuition which allow them to raise the price of tuition, They also accept government money to produce global warming studies that help push for more government control. To me, colleges are worse than the NFL.
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