In 2016 quarterback of the 49’s Colin Kaepernick started a protest that was felt by millions. He started his protest by kneeling and saying it was to protest police brutality in the United States. He has had an out crying of support but an even larger back lash from the American people who support the flag. Many people felt that he was disrespecting those who currently served, previously served and died in the armed services by kneeling for the National Anthem in protest. At first the NFL was hesitant to support this and no ruling was made in 2016. In 2017 the President of the CEO allowed the ever-growing number of players to kneel on the field during the National Anthem. Many long term and new fans decided that the new stance of the NFL was unacceptable.
At the beginning of last season in 2017, many fans refused to buy tickets, season tickets, NFL Sports packages from cable providers, sports gear and team related items. This was the start of the NFL boycott, right from the beginning sponsors started dropping the NFL in a bid to try and stop the loss of profits due to the boycott. Even with all the pressure form 2016, with the loss of millions of viewers the 2017 season was not set for any better as more and more players took the knee on the field. By the October of 2017 the NFL had lost between 20% – 25% of its viewers, while there are other factors that attribute to this lost of viewers a good majority stopped watching due to protest.
In 2018 it was confirmed just before the Super Bowl in 2017 the NFL had lost over Thirty-million dollars in revenue. This is from the above-mentioned loss of sales and sponsors. The NFL has been feeling the pressure due to the loss of profits. They played a political gamble and lost, now they are trying to fix this in preparation for the 2018 season.
On May 23, 2018 the NFL released a statement that all player will need to stand for the Anthem while on the field or wait in the locker room until the Anthem is complete. Teams, not individuals will be fined for kneeling on the field. While the price of the fine has not been mentioned by the NFL it is expected to be upwards to ten-thousand dollars per incident.
The NFL has decided to set up this policy because they failed to win their political gamble. Many people quoted the first amendment for what these players were doing, but that is not the case. The first amendment prevents the government from limiting what can be said by the people, stopping the right to free assembly and creating the topic the press is allowed to report on. But as with everything when speech happens there is a reaction, being allowed to protest is their right, but it is also the right of the people to react positively and negatively to the protest is their choice. While their intention was to bring attention to police brutality in the US, but all it did was drive away life long fans from the NFL and many have sworn to never return. The NFL could have stopped this before it took of but due to the political climate they folded to a vocal minority.
Boycotts are becoming the largest way to effect companies who have turned their back on their supporters and customers. The two most recent companies to cause this reaction and have boycotts levied against them are Yeti and Dick’s Sporting goods. These companies took an approach to the politics in the wrong way. Yeti took themselves off the NRA discount list and then waited days to put out a press release blaming the NRA for changing the way their discount program works, this was disproven and in around a month Yeti has lost distributors, competitors who make similar products coming in and taking over the areas where Yeti lost. Dicks Sporting Goods and their associated Field and Stream have been taking massive losses after their decision to stop selling AR platform and AK platform rifles and pistols. Three major companies have stopped selling their products to Dick’s and now Dick’s has taken the step towards anti-second amendment by hiring lobbyists who are against the Second Amendment. Maybe these examples will tell companies to stop playing the political game and just sell the products we want at the prices we want and entertain us in the ways we’ve payed them too.
Sources
http://www.breitbart.com/sports/2018/01/28/nfl-lost-30-million-ad-revenue-cratering-tv-ratings/
http://www.latimes.com/sports/nfl/la-sp-nfl-national-anthem-20180523-story.html
