Non-kneeling Reasons To Boycott The NFL
If you’re like me, you don’t watch football. Odds are, you’re not like me but the number of citizens who are opting to spend their time elsewise, is growing. According to Commissioner Roger Goodell, declining viewership is due to the controversy over athletes kneeling during the national anthem. That’s why the NFL has recently ruled that if players want to engage in the protest, they may do so in the locker room where nobody can see them. I guess the thought is that viewers will come back if they forget athletes are people too.
With all due respect to Commissioner Goodell, (though from what I gather, that isn’t much,) I’d like to disagree. Viewership is down for so many more reasons. This year, the leading reason might be the attempt to stifle player’s first amendment rights, but that’s only part of it. Don’t get me wrong, the conflict between engaged athletes and ostrich-like spectators is a big part of the decrease in popularity, but that trend started years ago. Here’s a handful of the reasons why.
The obvious first choice is concussions. This one has gotten a lot of attention over the past few years, which might be why it makes so many people angry. The dangers of head trauma in all athletics, but football specifically, has become somewhat common knowledge recently, but the NFL and other governing bodies have known about it for much longer. Report after report tells us that the powers that be within the organization continually ignored and quieted research because, among other reasons, admitting how dangerous the sport is might hurt ratings.
Cheerleaders are on the sideline for the spectators. Clearly, their job is to energize the crowd. If ratings are the goal, cheerleaders would seem to be a vital component of that. That’s why there continues to be contention over the fact that these women, (high level athletes in their own right,) make about $1,000 dollars a year. To put that in perspective, most mascots make around $65,000. Let’s assume there is no misogyny or objectification these girls go through, (yeah right.) Paying anyone less than minimum wage is where many viewers have drawn the line.
One of the biggest factors for me was the NFL’s participation in breast cancer awareness month. As many of you know, this is when for the month of October, every team highlights their jerseys, helmets, and even the field pink to raise money for cancer research. They sell special merchandise and donate all the money to fighting one of the most pervasive cancers out there. All the money that is, after the 25% royalty fee, the team’s cut, the manufacturing cost, and a handful of other fingers in the pie. By the time all the numbers are run, roughly 8% of the profits go to cancer organizations. There is some skepticism if the number is even that high.
For some, the issue is much simpler than that. Football is one of the last bastions for glorifying all out, primal testosterone and machismo. Don’t we get enough of that in every other corner of the world?
That last element is probably why so many of the remaining viewers have pounced on the players protesting during the anthem. A thoughtful and measured response to a pressing social issue has no place in an arena founded on rewarding the person who can most barbarically collide with another person. If that’s the kind of organization the NFL wants to be, the new rule makes perfect sense. We the people deserve better though. If the NFL wants our viewership, make them earn it.
