NFL Demise Watch 2018: Even anti-Trump leftists are boycotting the league now
They say that the pursuit of trying to please everyone often leaves nobody satisfied.
The NFL is living proof of that adage.
Despite calls for boycotts and declining viewership, the NFL is still king of television ratings. The league’s brass likes to flaunt this, and they are technically correct.
But public sentiment for the league has never been lower and the NFL, and the league is at risk of embodying another adage — that pride comes before the fall.
The NFL’s recent woes began in 2016, when then-49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick first began kneeling for the national anthem. That protest spread across the league as several other players began adopting the protests as well.
Soon thereafter, the protests evolved into players kneeling, sitting and raising their fists during the national anthem.
Coincidentally, the NFL’s ratings decline began in earnest during the 2016 season. That’s not exactly a surprise considering the swathes of Americans who were deeply offended by the anthem protests. Many found it to be the ultimate form of disrespect to the flag and the heroes who’ve fallen defending it.
The next major flash point for the NFL came during Week 3 of last season when President Donald Trump lambasted the anthem protesters. The league’s players responded with widespread anthem protests, with every team, at the very least, linking arms during the anthem in protest against Trump — and several owners joining with the players.
The most recent PR disaster for the NFL came after the season when the league owners approved a new rule mandating that players on the sideline stand for the anthem, while still giving the option to remain in the locker room as a sort of an “out of sight, out of mind” form of protesting.
Much like most things NFL commissioner Roger Goodell deals with, the new policy was an unmitigated disaster. Conservative NFL viewers felt the new rule was too little, too late. Liberal NFL viewers felt the new rule was an attack on the players’ rights.
The irony of it all is that anthem protests were actually dying down in number and coverage until Goodell and the owners decided to implement the new rule.
Frankly, the NFL was already losing conservative viewers because of the anthem protests. Now, they’re losing liberal viewers, too. It doesn’t take an expert to deduce that losing viewers across the political spectrum is not a sustainable endeavor.
Take, for example, Shaun King and rapper T.I. (born Clifford Joseph Harris Jr.) Both King and T.I. have been vocal Trump detractors and prove that the enemy of my enemy isn’t always my friend.
Speaking with ESPN’s Jemele Hill, T.I. revealed that he plans on boycotting the NFL despite the Super Bowl being in his hometown Atlanta next year.
Hosted @BET’s #GeniusTalks at #BETX yesterday and @Tip explained why he’s boycotting the NFL, even though the Super Bowl is in Atlanta next year pic.twitter.com/V22y3Imc8r
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) June 24, 2018
“I think there’s a violation of constitutional rights being implemented to minority players who choose to have a peaceful silent protest,” T.I. said.
Interestingly, T.I. also voiced a common refrain among more conservative boycotters.
“We gotta go to the corporations, stop spending our dollars with them until they press the politicians who press the police to do what we need to do until they respect our lives and consider us as equals, or else they don’t deserve our dollars,” he said.
King, for his part, has been unabashed in his support for Kaepernick and has railed against the league for what he perceives to be the blackballing of the former quarterback.
“I’m boycotting the NFL because of its blatant bigotry and anti-blackness,” King wrote in an Op-Ed.
So just to recap, the NFL is officially starting to pay the price for not nipping protests in the bud before it became a national debate. And much like the NFL does these days, their attempts to fix it are coming far too late and only making things worse.
Factoring in fans who are abandoning the NFL for apolitical reasons (such as the issue of CTE, concussions and general apathy for the sport), this may be one of the biggest issues the league has ever dealt with.
Say what you will about the NBA and its very left-leaning politics, but at least it has the fortitude to stand by the courage of its convictions. Even if you can’t stand the NBA’s grandstanding, that’s more admirable than whatever spineless cowardice the NFL is exemplifying.
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