Controversy has plagued the NFL for several years now, following former quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the National Anthem in 2016 in protest of police brutality and racial injustice throughout the country. Kaepernick became a free agent after that season and was not re-signed, which many took as a reaction to his political protest. The kneeling incident sparked a lasting controversy that resulted in boycotts of the NFL on both sides of the issue.
OnlineRoulette.org recently conducted a study to examine some of the continuing impacts of the #BoycottNFL movement, and to see which team’s fans were more likely to boycott the league as a result of the protests.
Notably, the study showed that the most searches for the hashtag “BoycottNFL” came from Texas (12.86k) and California (11.98k), while Vermont (160) and Alaska (260) had the lowest search volume for the hashtag. OnlineRoulette.org also analyzed two particularly prominent NFL-related hashtags between September and October of 2020 to get a sense of the sentiment behind each tag.
Sentiment analysis found that 40.54% of the 8,010 “#boycottNFL” tweets collected for the study had a negative sentiment, while 30.32% of the tweets were positive and 29.14% were neutral.
Another popular NFL-related hashtag, #takeaknee, showed an overwhelmingly opposite sentiment overall. Of the 739 tweets analyzed with this hashtag, 44.79% had a positive connotation, while 38.84% were negative and 16.37% were neutral.
When it came to NFL fans, the study surveyed 976 supporters of the boycott to get an understanding of which team they support and why they’re in favor of boycotting the league. Interestingly, 18.5% of respondents who supported a boycott were Arizona Cardinals fans, while 18.3% were Buffalo Bills fans and 17.4% were New York Giants fans.
Kneeling during the National Anthem was by far the biggest reason that respondents backed a boycott, with 46.5% citing that issue. 26.8% said the Black Lives Matter movement prompted their support for a boycott, and 23% cited national pride as their reason.
What do these NFL fans think should happen in order for a boycott to end? The survey showed overwhelming support for players being fined if they kneel during the National Anthem (58.1%), and slightly less support (53.3%) for players being suspended if they kneel. 25.9% of respondents said that the NFL should out and out ban players who kneel during the anthem.
Though many seem passionate about a boycott for one reason or another, whether or not they actually followed through on boycotting for a long period of time appears to be a different thing entirely. 88.5% of #boycottNFL supporters admitted to watching at least one game in 2020, and just 11.5% said they didn’t watch a single one in 2020. In a 17-week season, 5.9 weeks was the average amount of time that boycotters watched NFL football throughout 2020. Interestingly enough, 83.5% of boycott supporters said they still planned to watch the SuperBowl despite their feelings on the league.
Whether boycotts will continue to gain traction is still somewhat in question but seems rather unlikely. However, one thing is certain, the NFL has become a divisive enterprise in recent years and many devoted fans have strong feelings in two very different directions about the positions the league should be taking on political and social issues. The NFL itself has come out in support of free speech and peaceful protest, which may have cooled things down slightly. At the end of the day, a percentage of the NFL audience boycotting won’t destroy the league or the sport overall, meaning that this serious and heated conversation will almost certainly continue for years to come.