NFL HELL: Owners/TV networks face mounting losses as Trump called boycotts spread

[H. E. Panqui]

....some small-minded republican-radio-level authoritarians have tried to lump the protesters all into one tiny box...but there are probably as many reasons for protest as there are protesters...

https://www.sbnation.com/2017/9/28/16376500/nfl-protests-2017-kneeling-national-anthem-why

"...We spoke at length about many of the issues that face our community, including systemic oppression against people of color, police brutality and the criminal justice system. We also discussed how we could use our platform, provided to us by being professional athletes in the N.F.L., to speak for those who are voiceless.
After hours of careful consideration, and even a visit from Nate Boyer, a retired Green Beret and former NFL player, we came to the conclusion that we should kneel, rather than sit, the next day during the anthem as a peaceful protest. We chose to kneel because it’s a respectful gesture. I remember thinking our posture was like a flag flown at half-mast to mark a tragedy.
​

The message that the players are trying to send has been misconstrued. Some have said that the players are attempting to disrespect the country, national anthem, flag, and military by taking a knee — that is incorrect. Part of the confusion came from initial misunderstanding, and it grew when Trump spoke at his rally in Alabama.
The players are simply protesting systemic oppression against people of color, police brutality, and the criminal justice system. The national anthem is just the vehicle for the protest.

 

[euphemia]

If anything the criminal justice system has failed the people around NFL players. Ask Rae Carruth's girlfriend. Oh, you can't. She's dead. He's in jail. He should be. Lawrence Phillips dragged his girlfriend down the stairs and slammed her head against a mailbox. He was never prosecuted for that. He's in prison now, but the system failed in that case. Ask Janay Rice. Her then-fiance knocked her cold in an elevator. Michael Vick abused animals.

These are not the people to be protesting anything to do with police or justice.

 

[otherone]

If anything the criminal justice system has failed the people around NFL players. Ask Rae Carruth's girlfriend. Oh, you can't. She's dead. He's in jail. He should be. Lawrence Phillips dragged his girlfriend down the stairs and slammed her head against a mailbox. He was never prosecuted for that. He's in prison now, but the system failed in that case. Ask Janay Rice. Her then-fiance knocked her cold in an elevator. Michael Vick abused animals.

These are not the people to be protesting anything to do with police or justice.

You have a picture of the aforementioned kneeling?

 

[bunklocoempire]

Empty private stadiums, or empty publicly funded stadiums?

Screw 'em all.

Survivor of Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.

 

[otherone]

I don't think all police are bad and I don't think they all wake up deciding to harm people. I also don't think all police incidents are accidents. I don't think we can broad brush all police officers and police departments and say this is a blue issue.

It most certainly is a blue issue. When cops are routinely, consistently, predictably vindicated for obvious criminal behavior, it is a blue issue.

 

[Zippyjuan]

People aren't boycotting because of the protesting (most of those who said they were going to probably weren't going to attend any games anyways). The league has continuing problems with tickets being too expensive and a poorer product on the field. It isn't Trump Tweets which are the problem.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/...rterback-play-making-nfl-games-hard-to-watch/

Too many bad teams, awful quarterback play making NFL games hard to watch

People are staying away from the NFL. Viewership is down and empty seats are up compared to the record ratings of a few years ago. It's hard to argue that fact.

Any camera angle that panned across the upper deck in any number of stadiums Sunday confirmed that fact. The issues with ratings are well-documented. It has become convenient to blame that phenomenon, at least in part, on the ongoing issues of player demonstrations but now, nearly a season-and-a-half since Colin Kaepernick first took a knee, I'm not buying it. There's some protesting going on, without a doubt, but it's fans protesting the product being put on the field, I believe, more than any pronounced reaction to a handful of players displaying their Constitutional rights before kickoff.

This downturn in the number of eyeballs watching closely every Sunday and Monday and Thursday is more directly related, in my opinion, to the fact that the number of quarterbacks you would pay big bucks to see in a game with no rooting interest seems to be shrinking by the week. It's a byproduct of the number of teams who fail to play anything close to attractive football, and who haven't found or developed a skill player who would garner a second look. It's a factor of yet another weekend when injuries ravaged the already-depleted QB position, and America was treated to the likes of guys like Matt Moore, Drew Stanton and Cody Kessler playing in games that count in the standings, to go with the likes of Brett Hundley and Case Keenum and Mitchell Trubisky and C.J. Beathard who have already been thrust into action due to injury or the ineffectiveness of others.

The NFL has altered the rules and tilted the field for the offense over the past few decades. There's nothing more it can do to subsidize scoring. Problem is, the way some of these teams have been constructed and coached, it really doesn't matter. Far too many teams and far too many quarterbacks are simply too hard to watch -- or at least watch regularly -- and it says here that has more to do with the sustained ratings dip than people boycotting because of anthem demonstrations or anything else.

Peyton Manning and Tony Romo are retired and not coming back. Andrew Luck and Aaron Rodgers won't be throwing a football in a game that matters for a long time.

More at link.

 

[Pauls' Revere]

I'm tired of everything being politicized. A simple football game turns into a shit storm over nothing. Latest I heard is that "Kap" will stop kneeling if someone signs him on. LOL so all this was to put financial and PR pressure on the league (and fans) so he could get a job? wtf, who does that?

 

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

Maybe George Soros can pay to fill them.

The Zipper John Group can fill the seats!

 

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

Here's the link on NFL criminal stats:

http://nflarrest.com/

Keep in mind there are 1700 NFL Players and their arrest rates are lower than the USA arrest rate.

Yep; I was just about to post this until I read your post. If I remember right--it was a study showing that the per capita crime rate is generally lower among athletes than the population at large.

 

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

...to the fact that the number of quarterbacks you would pay big bucks to see in a game with no rooting interest seems to be shrinking by the week.

Oh pleez. Who wrote that article? Some 90 year old geezer pining for Blanda and Bart Starr? Or maybe some ADHD millenial who lost all his "fantasy football" picks.

Players always get injured. Nothing new.

Deshaun Watson is leading the league. Tom Brady is--what?--40 years old and still going strong. You have Alex Smith and Russell Wilson is still in there. Hasn't Wentz been playing well?

This stuff goes in cycles. Attention spans are shorter these days, so it's probably the downturn. Just like when the NBA took a turn after the retirements of guys like Jordan, Bird, Magic, Jabbar, Malone, Stockton, Ewing, Robinson, Isaiah, Drexler, Olajuwon, Parrish, Worthy, McHale, Pippin,and some others.

NFL had its moments and now the spectator torch will be passed to another league.

 

[nobody's_hero]

If anything the criminal justice system has failed the people around NFL players. Ask Rae Carruth's girlfriend. Oh, you can't. She's dead. He's in jail. He should be. Lawrence Phillips dragged his girlfriend down the stairs and slammed her head against a mailbox. He was never prosecuted for that. He's in prison now, but the system failed in that case. Ask Janay Rice. Her then-fiance knocked her cold in an elevator. Michael Vick abused animals.

These are not the people to be protesting anything to do with police or justice.

That's kind of a caveat, isn't it? I too would like to become enraged about cops killing black folk during encounters, but for a lot of the case studies there've been a series of life choices that led up to the encounter that put a damper on things. Someone getting shot while loading groceries in his car to feed his family is a bit more emotionally relatable than a guy getting shot while running out of a broken display window with a pair of stolen Nike shoes under each arm. That doesn't excuse cops being put on paid vacation for wrongful death, but the perpetrator's demise not something I'd get my panties in a wad over because even if the police didn't exist and some random shop-owner chased him down and beat the #*% out of the looter, I'd still see it as karma. I wish I could award your political incorrectness with some reputation but alas, I must spread some around.

I know, I know that'll draw the ire of the kumbaya coalition hopefuls here on RPF (I await the flame), but I think we'll probably see the state collapse under its own weight before you ever see some truly groundbreaking cooperation between the left and the right to beat back the leviathan.

 

[euphemia]

It most certainly is a blue issue. When cops are routinely, consistently, predictably vindicated for obvious criminal behavior, it is a blue issue.

Aganst NFL players? They have no beef with cops. Cops aid and abet them at every turn.

On the other hand, American tennis player James Blake has been manhandled by police for no reason. He has something to complain about.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Oh Ender, dear Ender, if they would havecome for the Socialists, and done a thorough stinkin' job, we would not be having these problems!

Socialists are the actual, literal enemy of us libertarians. And here you are expressing sympathy and love for them, lamenting that anything bad might have ever happened to hinder them in their campaign of worldwide destruction. Whoops! Tactical error! Time to backtrack, fast!

Liberty does not include the 'liberty' to destroy liberty. That would be a logical contradiction; in fact, that's not strong enough: it would be utter nonsense. A socialist or communist individual is, according to the libertarian, nothing more than a deranged and toxic criminal, loudly advertising his intention to rob and victimize you, to destroy you and your family and also -- far more ambitious than the run-of-the-mill typical low-life criminal -- to rip down and destroy everything you hold dear, everything you love, all the institutions and civilization you and your ancestors have built, in order to build a new society that will be in accordance with his own toxic, crazed, egalitarian fever-dreams. Of course, being insipidly lazy and malicious, as criminals predictably are, he never gets around to devoting any attention to the 'building up a new society' part, which would be impossible anyway, due to the severe non-reality of his delusions; instead he is content to devote all his malignant energies to tearing down the existing one.

Socialists, like all other incorrigible criminal types, must be physically removed from society, if that society is to continue to exist. You cannot have a peaceful, happy neighborhood based on respect for each other's property rights if instead of neighbors you are surrounded by freaks who want to utterly remove your property rights.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

a guy getting shot while running out of a broken display window with a pair of stolen Nike shoes under each arm. That doesn't excuse cops being put on paid vacation for wrongful death

What you just described is a rightful death.

 

[Anti Federalist]

People aren't boycotting because of the protesting (most of those who said they were going to probably weren't going to attend any games anyways). The league has continuing problems with tickets being too expensive and a poorer product on the field. It isn't Trump Tweets which are the problem.

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/...rterback-play-making-nfl-games-hard-to-watch/

More at link.

That's an opinion piece in which the author believes that the protests have nothing to do with it.

And that's ridiculous on the face of it.

Certainly the protests have had a negative effect.

That's not to say the speed and quality of the game play is not sub-par either or that tickets to live game are outrageously expensive.

But you and the NFL are out of your minds if you think these protests are not causing a great many people in the NFL's core customer demographic to walk away.

 

[Anti Federalist]

I'm tired of everything being politicized.

This is what happens when a leftist revolution sweeps over a nation.

Everything becomes political and everything you do is viewed and judged and reported on through a lens of state approved political filters.

 

[euphemia]

Yep; I was just about to post this until I read your post. If I remember right--it was a study showing that the per capita crime rate is generally lower among athletes than the population at large.

But these are the new elite. The are idols of popular culture. They have enjoyed every single privilege available. They are supposedly better people. They should be committing no crime. Or at least only white collar crime.

 

[nobody's_hero]

Oh Ender, dear Ender, if they would havecome for the Socialists, and done a thorough stinkin' job, we would not be having these problems!

I don't think 'they' want to come for the socialists. The only true enemies of the powers that be are the people who refute and oppose them, not those who worship them.

Niemöller's poem in today's terms would be more like:

"First they came for the libertarians and that was it. The end."

Not quite as inspirational I suppose.

 

[dannno]

That's an opinion piece in which the author believes that the protests have nothing to do with it.

And that's ridiculous on the face of it.

Certainly the protests have had a negative effect.

That's not to say the speed and quality of the game play is not sub-par either or that tickets to live game are outrageously expensive.

But you and the NFL are out of your minds if you think these protests are not causing a great many people in the NFL's core customer demographic to walk away.

Ya it's just making the decision that much easier.

 

[dannno]

But these are the new elite. The are idols of popular culture. They have enjoyed every single privilege available. They are supposedly better people. They should be committing no crime. Or at least only white collar crime.

Nah, athletes tend to have high "T". I dunno why on earth you would think they are "better people". They are more well off, so they don't have to commit as much property crime.