They have no choice but to defend their players. They'd be immediately labeled racist if they didn't - see the Clippers' guy. I'm sure many of them are sick to their stomachs when they have the guys they pay millions to in salaries disrespecting the national anthem.
Lol indeed. https://sports.yahoo.com/cbs-rating...gs-whole-expected-see-increase-154216596.html CBS' ratings go up for Week 3, NFL ratings as whole expected to see increase https://www.cbspressexpress.com/cbs-sports/releases/view?id=48548 CBS SPORTS’ COVERAGE OF NFL FOR WEEK 3 UP 4% OVER 2016
The Nielson rating measures TV viewership. it has nothing w mobile viewing of NFL games. while TV viewing has declined, mobile viewing of NFL games has risen BIGly. have you ever watch sporting events on your smart phone / mobile devises ? do you even own a smart phone / mobile devise?
There's no evidence that it's had any kind of negative effect on viewership, ratings were up for CBS this week compared to last year. https://sports.yahoo.com/cbs-rating...gs-whole-expected-see-increase-154216596.html Now ratings overall for the last few years have been down, but that likely has more to do with the increase in cord-cutting than with political demonstrations, not to mention other various controversies happening within the NFL. The real losing proposition here is a sitting president picking a public fight the the NFL because it's low-hanging fruit for his brain-dead base. It remains to be seen how much this will negatively affect Trump since he's already being held to such an absurdly low standard already, but we shall see.
Of course they were up, people tuned in to see what would happen and how many players and what teams would be douchebags. I would expect the backlash to happen a few weeks from now. Again, when Boston fans are booing Patriots players for doing something, it's REALLY not popular.
healthcare bill fails --> Trump bans transgenders from the military Health care bill looking like it may fail again --> trump targets NFL players.
I don't think it matters if they booed or not, they paid for tickets and supported an NFL game more than someone who just flipped it on TV.
I think long term it could if the players keep up their nonsense. When you piss off your fanbase, you may not notice it right away but it will eventually have an effect. The players being douchebags is bad for the league but I'm guessing they'll wait till it starts affecting the bottom line before they do something about it.
Did they leave the game or did they end up cheering for the same players that they booed for a whole 30 seconds?
Disrespecting the country is douchebaggery, especially when there's not a valid reason to do so. Trying to bring politics into football is douchebaggery. There's nothing wrong with legitimate protesting when it's done at the right time and place and there is a legitimate cause. Again, did you read the part above where I said "you may not notice it right away but it will eventually have an effect."?
I call these trivial symbolic trivial gestures to express patriotism as fast food patriotism. It has no bearing on whether one can be a positive useful citizen to this country. A engineer who protests by kneeling for the anthem is doing more for our gdp than a Uber driver who always stands for the pledge with a full erection. It shows the wacked out priorities many American citizens have by being more irked by an athlete not abiding by a arbitrary trivial ritual vs the most powerful man on the planet using his bully pulpit to tell private employers whom to fire and calling the mothers of those athletes 'b****es'. We live in a country where people ask our athletes to act more professional and 'adult like' than our POTUS. Can any poster here explain why they place more scrutiny towards a professional athletes than our president? It's depressing.
I think there is something to this and this is why I don't think Trump is as stupid as his critics make him out to be. It's not just GOP health care looking to fail but we have millions of Americans struggling in the wake of three major disasters, a whole US territory sitting in the dark, and NK not giving up their weapons and continuing to threaten the US and allies. Trump is a master of distraction and if he can make the news cycle about sports and get people riled up on both sides there is less focus on the much more serious and intractable problems that face us. Don't get me wrong I love football and I'm a very dedicated sports fans. The inordinate amount of time and resources that we focus on sports is a problem. For those who criticize pandered overpaid millionaires expressing their opinions consider it is your own fandom that has made them so. We shouldn't be looking to sports stars as role models of patriotism or protest. They are allowed and should be allowed to have and express their opinions but those should be judged as being relevant as much as anyone else in any other profession. If this situation actually does lead to a lessening of the idolization of sports figures that might be a good thing.
Life hack: Tune into the game at 15 after the hour and you can jump right into play! You don't have to watch all that boring singing and pregame stuff!!! Oh wait, y'all were doing that anyway. You just want something to b**** about this week.
This EXACTLY. The vast majority of people who are b****ing don't even tune in for the anthem. They don't even watch the stupid extended pre and post game coverage. They just tune into the game and comment on their respective forum/subreddit. They are just funding excuses to be triggered.