NFL takes another hit
League was already losing popularity, and then came anthem protests
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Attendance down. Ratings declining. Concussions. Painkillers. Domestic violence. And now this. The National Football League is perilously positioned, standing on shaky footing as it attempts to sell tickets and sell the future of a sport currently cloaked by severe safety concerns. Blowback from protests that took place during national anthems last weekend could hurt even more.
Perhaps this ordeal, a messy tangling of sports and politics, represents a turning point in America’s long-standing love affair with professional football. Locally, in a city draped proudly in black and gold, it may mark an important moment for the sixtime Super Bowl champion Steelers, challenging their reign as untouchable in Pittsburgh.
Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Jeff Thieret was at lunch with his wife Sunday in Cranberry, not far from their Harmony home, when he heard a bartender remark Alejandro Villanueva was standing alone during the national anthem at Soldier Field. A man at the bar
asked, “Where are the rest of the Steelers?” The bartender replied, “They’re all in the tunnel.” One man nearby cussed, Mr. Thieret said, and another slammed his beer bottle on the bar. It foamed over.
“It really was like a body slam to me,” Mr. Thieret said Wednesday, recalling his reaction to seeing Steelers standing in the shadows. “I was very — what’s the best way to describe it? Anger is a good word, but it was more fury inside of me. What the hellare they doing? Why?”
Count Mr. Thieret, 64, among the portion of fans wishing the Steelers hadn’t tried to avoid an outcry by staying off the field for the national anthem. He doesn’t support how President Donald Trump stirred up the situation, but he believes the Steelers, intending to decry Mr. Trump’s divisive, disparaging comments, lost sight of the American flag’s significance to fans.
“They protected their investment, but they didn’t protect their investors,” Mr. Thieret said, “the people who actually fund the team and allow them to pay those supertalented heroes — former heroes, some of them. Now that money possibly … could start dryingup.”
In an age when cable customers are cord-cutting at a record rate, the NFL had weighty concerns to solve before Aug. 14, 2016, when thenSan Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick first sat during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial injustice. While Mr. Trump said the protest “massively, massively” hurt TV ratings, there were other causes.
NFL ratings fell 8 percent during the 2016 regular season and dropped another 10 percent through three weeks of games in 2017. Average attendance is down 5 percent this season, per Politifact, influenced in part by the Los Angeles Chargers, one of two teams searching for a foothold in the country’s secondlargest city, playing in a 27,000-seat stadium.
For those still tuned in — who tolerated stories of domestic violence, painkiller addictions and head trauma to just watch football — were widespread protests the final straw? Some say yes. Will their opinion be followed by behavioralchange?
To be sure, the Steelers still have diehards and defenders behind them. They may have alienated a fraction of their fan base — a large fraction, by the noise of it — but others were initially encouraged by the team’s perceived decision to skip the national anthem in collective protest. Some, like coach Mike Tomlin on Sunday, mostly were irritated the teamwas put in this pinch.
In a column for “The Hill”, retiredAir Force Gen. Michael Hayden, a Pittsburgh native and former director of the CIA and NSA, applauded the Steelers for rejecting a “false dilemma” posed by Mr. Trump and concentrating instead on unity,focus and football.
“Pittsburgh is a patriotic town,” wrote Mr. Hayden, addinglater he now sides with Mr. Kaepernick. “There was a lot of anger about the Steelers not showing up. But I believe that everyone on the Steelers did the right thing. They were dealt a bad hand and played it as best they could. Or, more accurately, they tried not to play. And the dealer here was PresidentTrump.”
Sport has survived scandal, strife and strike, times when some fans felt betrayed and were unable to relate with athletes. Baseball bounced back from the Black Soxgambling scandal in 1919. Basketball withstood pointshaving deceits and crooked referees. College athletics thrive despite the shady recruiting practices, which recent events suggest have never really gone away. It’s reasonable to believe the NFL, hounded by bounties and deflated footballs and player-conduct problems, will rebound and win back fans lost during these protests.
“I’m a lifelong Steelers fan,” Mr. Thieret clarified. “I’m still a Steelers fan.”
But something changed Sunday, he said, starting somesort of domino effect.
“It has drawn the NFL into politics,” Mr. Thieret said. “It has drawn us into the real world and taken the escape [of sports] away. In that regard, it is a turning point. It has brought an ugly reality into something that took us away from that ugly reality. … When you’re watching, now you're thinking politics. You're thinking animosity and acrimony and political [baloney].”
On Wednesday, center MaurkicePouncey explained what will happen next. The Steelers all will stand on the sideline for the national anthem Sunday in Baltimore. No tunnel. No protest. No kneeling.Not this time.
Mr. Thieret doesn’t plan to stop watching the NFL. He doesn’t have much memorabilia, so as a minor protest he will return a Steelers dress shirt and an autographed itemhe recently bought. More than anything, he’s sad. He’s sad the Steelers didn’t handle it like the Cowboys did — kneel together before the anthem, stand together during it. He’s sad the backlash will mean vendors at Heinz Field and workers selling gear will sufferfinancially.
And Mr. Thieret is sad the flag,a symbol of unity, is being used to create division. On Sunday, it wasn’t a couple players kneeling during the national anthem, it was an entire team absent. Mr. Thieret hopes the Steelers will reconsider the message they send this week. What may matter more to their fan base than what happened last Sunday, hesaid, is what happens next.
“This story is not done yet,” Mr. Thieret said.