The NFL may be in trouble.
The league took a serious ratings hit last year.
Many chalked it up to America’s obsession with the 2016 election, but a recent survey showed 26% of fans tuned out because of the anthem protests, and the problem could get worse.
A reporter for Conservative Review TV argues that the growing SJW culture could have long-lasting effects on the league.
From Breitbart:
A recent piece by Conservative Review TV host Steve Deace warns the NFL that if it doesn’t quash the constant anti-American protests during the national anthem, it risks putting a permanent dent in its “shield,” a dent that could further alienate its once loyal fan base.
In his August 28 article, Deace noted that the National Football League is one of the most quintessential American institutions we currently have in America today:
I believe we’re so passionate about football because it embodies everything we love about American exceptionalism. Merit is rewarded, not punished. Masculinity is celebrated, not feminized. People of various beliefs and backgrounds — a melting pot, if you will — must unify for a common goal for the team to be successful. In football, fortune favors the bold, just as it once did in the American frontier.
Still, he warns against “political correctness tearing down another masculine meritocracy” with its feminized attempt to scare American kids away from playing the sport over injuries and other left-wing lines of attack.
However, the newest attack by the left on our national game is the social justice warrior protests during the playing of the national anthem begun last year by former San Francisco 49er second string quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
Deace fears that these protests may ring the death knell for the thus far invincible sport.
Deace reviewed recent polls showing that the NFL’s once strong TV ratings are taking a dive and he also reports on a survey that found that fans stopped watching the NFL because of Colin Kaepernick’s constant social justice warrior protests.
The CRTV host goes on to recount the millions of subscribers that ESPN has lost, some say because of the far left political ideology that network executives have infused into the network’s sports reporting.
It all brings Deace to ask, “Are Commissioner Roger Goodell and the NFL paying attention?”
[…]
…if the NFL continues to permit the SJW invasion of its sport, that shield could be tested, as last year’s ratings decline indicates. See, there are numerous anthem protests happening during college football games as well, but that’s different. Most Americans assume college players are on a liberal campus and/or exploring their own voice for the first time. Plus, they’re not paid, at least not above the table.
Deace makes another salient point, the average player makes $2 million a year, yet only one in four NFL fans make anywhere near $100,000 a year. The radio talker points out that many NFL fans live paycheck to paycheck and look to the NFL as a reward for a week of hard work and a bit of escapism. This gap is telling when it comes to how fans relate to the NFL’s social justice warriors:
Thus, the last thing they’re going to tolerate is someone making the gross domestic product of third world country lecturing them that America sucks and everyone’s a racist. They go to the NFL for refuge from societal problems they don’t have the luxury of whining about, not to be lectured to. Granted, those protesting would say their message is more nuanced than that, but that also displays arrogance in that they don’t even know their own audience.
The NFL is wildly popular, but its reign as the top spot isn’t a birthright. Baseball used to be king in America.
If the NFL doesn’t find a way to stop alienating its core audience, they could continue to see a precipitous drop in fan support, which would put a dent in many people’s pocketbooks.