By Steve Brawner
It’s not surprising that people are offended seeing NFL players kneeling during the national anthem. After all, if it weren’t offensive, the players wouldn’t make a statement by doing it.
But many other things are happening in that stadium that are more offensive.
Let’s start with the fact that as paying customers and TV viewers, we’re watching, and encouraging, young men as they suffer permanent brain injuries.
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, is a degenerative disorder that has been found in the brains of numerous deceased players. The latest was Aaron Hernandez, 27, who killed himself in his jail cell while serving a life sentence for murder. The disease robs its victims of years of their lives, while wives and other family members bear a terrible burden caring for them.
The link between the game and the disease cannot be denied. But the NFL, in the finest tradition of the tobacco industry, did exactly that until 2016 after settling a lawsuit with former players.
Crony capitalism
Then there’s the NFL’s business model. Billionaire owners have received billions more in government subsidies for stadiums that many taxpayers can’t afford the tickets to enter. In 2015, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance reported that 29 of the 31 NFL stadiums were built with the help of $7 billion in public subsidies. And that was before the Nevada Legislature provided $750 million to build a new stadium for the Raiders to leave Oakland for Las Vegas.
That stadium will be funded by a hotel room tax, but many of these subsidies represent massive transfers of wealth to the super wealthy. And if cities and states refuse to do so, the billionaire owners will just go somewhere else. In addition to the Raiders, NFL owners in recent years have turned their backs on St. Louis and San Diego. Those teams moved to Los Angeles, where the Rams and the Chargers have drawn disappointing crowds in temporary venues. Other owners have shaken down their taxpaying citizens by threatening to move.
The league was expected to collect $14 billion this season, which is $900 million more than last year, according to Sports Business Journal. It had enough money to pay commissioner Roger Goodell $31.7 million in 2015. And yet the millionaire players and billionaire owners are circling each other for another potential player lockout in 2021, just a decade after the last one in 2011 that didn’t affect any games.
The permanent brain injuries, the crony capitalism, the disloyalty to fan bases, the greed – all of it should have led people to question their allegiance to the NFL long ago.
So perhaps the most offensive part of this story is that hardly anyone seemed to care about any of that stuff. The national outrage occurred only after one backup quarterback and then half a dozen players started kneeling during the anthem to protest racial injustice and what they believe are unjustified police shootings. Then President Trump said they should be fired at a political rally, leading to a widespread protest by players this past Sunday.
Easy patriotism?
Finally, there’s this. Standing up for the national anthem, when 80,000 other people are doing it, is easy patriotism. Some people take it seriously, but for many Americans, it’s a superficial act requiring only a three minute break from their nachos and beer. Many don’t even know the words.
Real acts of patriotism require varying degrees of sacrifice. Those include voting, jury duty, military service, and taking an unpopular stance for a cause.
And yet for all of those acts, it’s considered perfectly acceptable to take a knee. In the 2016 election, almost half of Arkansas’ voting age population didn’t even go to the polls.
If a player kneeling during the national anthem is a problem for you, change the channel. But wives can’t get their dead husbands back, and taxpayers paying for stadiums won’t be reimbursed.
If I’m going to boycott the NFL – and I haven’t watched a game yet this season – those will be the reasons.
© 2017 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.