Once you break a habit for about 2 weeks -much easier not to to back. They found out there IS life other than football.
Posted on 10/08/2017 9:34:25 AM PDT by Excuse_My_Bellicosity
The NFL's players and owners find themselves trapped in a collapsing pocket of their own creation — and at risk of getting sacked by millions of fans across the country.
Two weekends ago, many team owners appeased their players by participating in national anthem demonstrations after President Trump's rather profane demand on Sept. 22 that owners fire any players who kneel. These demonstrations didn't go over well with many NFL fans — millions of whom are white, older, and conservative, and see any demonstration during the national anthem as fundamentally unpatriotic. So last weekend, some teams tried to innovate solutions — to no avail.
The New Orleans Saints knelt during the coin toss in their London game against the Miami Dolphins, which mostly puzzled fans. Were they protesting random chance? Baltimore Ravens players took a knee prior to the anthem, prompting a cascade of boos from their hometown fans who assumed that they would continue the protest through the performance of the song itself. Other teams stood — but demonstrated by linking arms and having statements read by the public announcer.
The nadir of this effort came on Monday night in Kansas City. The visiting Washington Redskins stood for the anthem, but three Chiefs players protested. Marcus Peters and Ukeme Eligwe sat on the bench, while Justin Houston knelt on the field. Unfortunately for the Chiefs, ESPN decided to carry the anthem live rather than sticking with pre-game analysis because of the mass shooting event in Las Vegas. The demonstrations infuriated many fans all over again.
Now obviously, millions of Americans are very much in favor of these demonstrations, which were originally intended to raise awareness of racial inequality, particularly with regard to minorities' treatment by law enforcement. But this is an extremely divisive issue — and millions upon millions of the NFL's core fans are furious.
The league's confusing and contradictory response to fan outrage demonstrates a lack of comprehension over precisely how they have offended their customers. Fan anger over the protests has eroded the NFL brand over the last year, but quantifying that has been complicated. The league has a number of issues that have contributed to that damage, including concerns over the long-term health of players, a perceived decline in game quality, and the NFL's mishandling of players' domestic violence incidents. The polling on protests has been almost universally terrible, however, and correlate with significant drops in ticket sales and television viewership since the 2015 season.
Owners seem to have assumed that fan anger was entirely focused on kneeling during the national anthem itself. In response, they pushed players to come up with different forms of demonstration — locking arms, kneeling just before the anthem, not showing up at all. None of it has calmed the fans' wrath, because none of it addresses the main points that have most angered them about the demonstrations.
First, the protests have become explicitly partisan. That isn't all the fault of the league and its players; President Trump criticized them sharply two weeks ago, telling a rally that the owners should fire anyone taking a knee. However, Trump was only responding to fan anger that had already built. Rather than simply responding in the press to Trump by telling him off, every team coordinated a massive demonstration during the national anthem that weekend, transforming a social protest that had involved fewer than a dozen players the previous week into an inescapably partisan demonstration.
NFL fans expect Sunday football to be an escape from the politicization of all things. There are many reasons for this — but a not insignificant one is that taxpayers provide publicly funded stadiums to billionaire owners and millionaire players for almost every team in the league. We are all footing the bill for NFL players' workplaces. Why should they become venues for partisan protest?
Furthermore, just as much as they value sportsmanship between competitors, fans value that moment of unity when we can put aside all of our agendas and come together simply as Americans. Any demonstration — kneeling, sitting, arm-linking — distracts from that unity. It steals that moment from fans, who wonder with some justification why athletes can't use their celebrity power to pick some other time for their protest rather than shove it down our throats after all the support fans already give these players and teams.
...that and the protests are predicated on demonstrable lies and everybody knows it.
NFL ingrates! we are paying $200 a seat to what? get insulted!??????
nO WAY NFL!
no freakin damn way!
GTH NFL!
BOYCOTT THE NFL ADVERTISERS!!!!
The article doesn’t mention how that Professional Sports and the broadcasting and analysis thereof are some of our society’s most colorblind moments in our lives. People don’t judge one’s efforts or success because they are white or black, that is generally put completely aside in the NFL. But now identity politics and diversity are blatantly injected and demanded to be acknowledged right in the middle of something that had by design of the sport shunned such agendas. That was part of the “NFL magic” that Rush Limbaugh references when he says that innocence is now lost forever.
Once you break a habit for about 2 weeks -much easier not to to back. They found out there IS life other than football.
This author needs to find a new vocation. His writing skills are non existent.
Yeah, that's a problem. Smart, qualified white men are rejected from jobs just cause some gubment mandated quota forces a business to hire barely literate Jamal. Blacks getting points added to med school entrance exams while much, much smarter whites and Asians are rejected from even getting admitted.
I agree. There's too much racial disparity in this country.
It will take a summit with Trump to walk this back, for the good of the country and the sport. Maybe Colin Kaepernick himself will need to go. It's that or die. Plus, something like that will settle the thing without the League or owners participating, which at this point is what needs to happen. The players need to save their own sport because the others involved have no idea what they are doing.
Sitting on your ass to protest our National Anthem, a musical symbol of the heart of the nation, would seem to be counter-intuitive to all but the most mentally challenged people.
Correct. How much are MA taxpayers still paying for the roads to Foxboro?
I left today's Colts game because @POTUS and I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem.
Not encouraging when the author gets the second sentence so wrong. Trump made no such "demand".
I left today’s Colts game because @POTUS and I will not dignify any event that disrespects our soldiers, our Flag, or our National Anthem.” Wow, the players must be up to their old tricks again. This is my 3rd week of NFL free weekend.
What hath Sno-Fro wrought?
Grandpa Dave, you have out-done yourself with post#2
Because protests always fail. Pretty much the only thing protests ever accomplish is helping the people in the protest not feel alone.
I love the game of football...
I have absolutely no use whatsoever for the NFL...
I said early on that the protests were doomed. Once started, there is no positive path out without capitulation for the players and the league.
They can’t claim “racial inequality” is solved, or even improved. All they can claim is that they’ve hurt their league and their standing with many Americans, football fans and non-fans alike.
Everyone was already aware of America’s racial issues, so there is no “awareness” to be raised.
There. Is. No. Upside. Available.
It’s. A. Loser.
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