NFL CEO with Trump ties sides with anthem protests... 'bad idea' to make players stand
There’s no question the protests by NFL players during the national anthem have taken a toll on the league.
Many fans who see the demonstrations as disrespectful to troops and veterans stopped watching NFL games last season. Television ratings fell by a whopping 9.7 percent, and the league’s brand favorability was nearly cut in half.
As NFL owners hold their spring meetings this week in Orlando, Florida, the subject of what to do about the protests is a hot topic.
Some believe the league should require its players to stand for the national anthem.
The owner of the New York Jets, however, is not among them.
Christopher Johnson said Sunday that “trying to get the players to shut up is a fantastically bad idea,” according to the Associated Press.
“I have immense respect for the players and their efforts,” he said. “I think if other teams approached it like that, it would not be such a problem in the NFL.”
The protest movement was started in 2016 when Colin Kaepernick, then with the San Francisco 49ers, sat for the anthem, saying later, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”
The protests continued through the 2017 season, driving many fans away. But Johnson said his organization embraced the issue.
“I think that the Jets had a pretty great thing happen last year around the anthem,” he said. “I think there was an understanding between me and the players that we could use our position — rightly or wrongly, people pay attention to teams and athletes — but we could use our position to get some great stuff done off the field. I think we have done some great things off the field.”
Interestingly, Johnson is acting as the Jets owner while his brother Woody is serving as ambassador to the United Kingdom under President Donald Trump, a vocal critic of the anthem kneelers.
Last year, Trump urged team owners to take action against the protesters.
“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a b—- off the field right now, he’s fired’?” the president said during a rally in September.
The NFL’s two team owners in Texas — Robert McNair of the Houston Texans and Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys — are leading the effort to ban demonstrations during the national anthem.
“Our playing field is not the place for political statements, not the place for religious statements. It’s the place for football,” McNair said Sunday via AP.
He said the league must take action if it wants to survive.
“Fans are upset about it,” McNair said. “The fans are our customers. You can replace the owners and the league would survive. You can replace the players, although the game won’t be as good. You can’t replace the fans. If you don’t have the fans, you’re dead.”
He added, “We’re going to deal with it in such a way, I think, that people will understand that we want everybody to respect our country, respect our flag.”
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