GORDON wrote: I think your snark is falling flat for me because you're suggesting that the media, extremely left-wing, is selling the NFL as suffering because of some supposed left-wing demonstrations.
Well, this is my point. You're not fully informed on the whole story. You're here rubbing our noses in something you see the MSM as reporting, but they're clearly not telling you everything.
GORDON wrote: Unless you're saying they are just trying to prove the NFL is conservative and evil?
I'm going to try and "long story short" this...
The NFL has enemies, and always has because it's MASSIVE. Ratings, merchandise sales, profits, etc. are all the envy of the other professional sports leagues combined. They would all love for the NFL to get hurt, and they'd profit from it. The NFL also has political enemies that are left wing. You can dig into everything behind this, but money is the core of it, specifically tax money, and the NFL gets a lot of breaks from Congress.
When Colin Kaepernick decided to start taking a knee during the anthem to protest how multimillionaires like himself are treated (that's snarky) it put blood into the water. The NFL had already taken recent hits due to concussions, but that really wasn't going anywhere. Nobody gave a fuck. Now the NFL's enemies could paint the NFL as a cold, racist, uncaring, and yes, conservative, organization. Old, rich, white men making billions off the backs of minorities and the poor. "When those poor players simply wanted a voice the NFL squashed it! They conspired to not hire Kaep back into the league." This is the cause of a lot of controversy by black fans in particular. Thus, you had some black fans (I know one) not watching because Kaep is being blacklisted, and you have old white guys (I know two) who aren't watching because players are kneeling. The NFL's enemies also brought up a scandal involving its use of military members for flag duty or something. It was and continues to be a pile on.
The NFL, literally, couldn't win no matter which side they chose.
Meanwhile, and this is strictly so you can contrast the story...the NBA, a league that is predominantly black, has rules strictly prohibiting players from kneeling during the anthem. Yet, their lily white commissioner who works for their lily white, rich, old owners came out with a statement saying they wouldn't tolerate it.
Think about it. The NFL is going destroyed for squashing their players' freedom of speech because one guy got blacklisted. (And really that's up for debate. Would you sign a QB who is mediocre at best, and will bring lots of controversy with him and piss off a portion of your fans? Anyone with any sort of business sense wouldn't.) Meanwhile, the same "villains" are prohibiting any freedom of speech from a black league and nobody bats an eye.
So yes, the NFL is rich, conservative, and white. All things socialist left wingers hate. If 50% of the NFL teams were minority owned, this Kaep things wouldn't have legs. (Not even 5% of NBA teams are minority owned. Again, just to contrast where one league gets criticized and the other doesn't.)
GORDON wrote: But if the NFL themselves are throwing millions at left-wing causes trying to prove they aren't evil conservatives, then your insight that they don't actually have a problem might be valuable to them, so they stop throwing money away.
This is to placate their players. This is asking them to stop kneeling without asking them to stop kneeling. They hope the players will stop, and that will appease the patriotic fans who have tuned out.
As for the "millions", do you know the saying "it's the least I could do"? This is the least they could do, literally. It is such a tiny amount of money to a league owned by 32 billionaires that I'm amazed the players were so grateful.
