Take care NFL- it’s been nice knowing you! This is certainly not the National Football League that us older millenials/younger Gen Xers used to know and love. While it’s been painfully obvious for some time that the NBA peaked long ago with its 1990s Golden Age, yesterday we learned that the NFL is over the hill too.
At least in this instance the league isn’t micro-managing itself into irrelevance by pandering to some corporatism middle ground. This time they shot themselves in the foot by taking a side- the wrong one. The ruling to penalize those who protest the national anthem is so stupid and maladaptive on so many levels, it’s hard to know where to even begin in vivisecting this.
NBA coach Steve Kerr says the NFL's anthem decision is what's wrong with our country right now pic.twitter.com/lyDZwFmDa6
— NowThis Impact (@nowthisimpact) May 24, 2018
Sadly though, this topic has already been beaten to death, and it’s only begrudgingly that we address it, because it’s way beyond a dead horse at this point.
We’ve written about it, in length, several times already and the topic is getting rather fatiguing. It’s actually not that complicated an issue, and it’s not difficult to resolve either, but the NFL still insists on pandering to the lowest common denominator.
Fans have checked out due to business, not political reasons. Ratings continue to fall because the league hasn’t figured out how to adjust to a media landscape that is dramatically changing overnight. Ratings are NOT falling because the league isn’t #MERICA enough. HERE is a link to the data and numbers that VERIFY this.
However, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell still insists on basing his 2018 business model on pandering to non-existent South Park background characters.
Here’s the thing- you don’t have to do the national anthem anymore. It wasn’t played until 1918 during WWI. Sporting events got by just fine without it before then. They can survive again sans Star Spangled Banner in the future.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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