Our view: Under pressure, NFL kneels before its bottom line
The NFL hit an ethical high-water mark last Sept. 24 when owners and players acted in solidarity over the legitimacy of peaceful dissent during the playing of the national anthem.
Dozens of team owners or CEOs issued statements or stood arm-in-arm with players defending their ability — and that of all Americans, for that matter — to speak out on passionate concerns: in the case of kneeling football players, the issue of police brutality toward African Americans.
That Sunday, they defied a scandalthreatened president who had desperately sought a diversionary wedge issue and found it in — what was early in the season — a dwindling number of players kneeling during the anthem. That was then.
Donald Trump’s profanity-laced condemnation of the kneelers succeeded in stoking national anger and resentment of the highly-paid players. As last season wore on, the league’s TV viewership, attendance and favorability rating all headed south.
At the owners’ meeting last week, the NFL — which is, above all, a business — kneeled before its bottom line. Feeling the heat, the league’s 32 owners revamped their national anthem protocol in split-the-baby fashion.
They decreed that teams would be fined for anyone failing to “stand and show respect for the flag and the anthem.” If the owner chooses, the fine can be passed onto to the protesting player. Players wishing to send a message can do so only by staying in the locker room during the song.
The new workplace rules, adopted without consent from the players’ union, aren’t likely to quash the dissent for a league where 70% of its players are black. As if to reinforce that reality, on the same day as the league’s decision the Milwaukee police released body camera footage showing the take- down and tasing of Bucks basketball player Sterling Brown in January over a parking violation. The city’s police chief and mayor have apologized, and the offending officers were punished.
By compromising on the principled stand that owners demonstrated in September, the league only muddies the water. Trump, in reaction, was hardly conciliatory. He said that those who don’t “stand proudly” for the anthem “shouldn’t be playing” and “maybe you shouldn’t be in the country.”
Nor may the bottom line be satisfied. New York Jets owner Christopher Johnson has already promised to bear any fine generated by kneeling-protests without forcing players to pay. Should other owners follow suit, there would be a patchwork of protests allowed depending on a team’s tolerance. That doesn’t end the practice, and it hardly demonstrates the kind of league uniformity the NFL prizes.
By trying to please everyone, the league pleases no one.