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The NFL Should Define “Political”
Is “Black Lives Matter” a political slogan? Is “End Racism” a political slogan? How about my favorite, “Say Their Stories”? Whose stories exactly? The stories of conservatives or pro-life advocates targeted by the Department of Justice and the FBI, or parents objecting to transgender indoctrination in schools, or the families of victims who were raped or murdered by illegal aliens? Their stories? The preceding are approved slogans by the NFL, meaning that the professional sports league not only has no problem with them but is content that they are emblazoned on the back of football helmets and along the borders of end zones on the playing field. This is also the same NFL that visually and emphatically endorses the LGBTQ+ movement with LGBTQ+ rainbow baseball caps and other apparel, you know, that movement that seeks to indoctrinate young children in public schools. Is that political messaging? Is it permitted to discuss whether the LGBTQ+ movement is a net positive for America or something more vile? If a football player puts the message “Men Cannot Be Women” on his helmet, would this statement of fact be permitted? Not likely. If a player speaks openly in front of the press that he vehemently disagrees with the NFL in its support of LGBTQ+, would he be fined and kicked out of the league?
Apparently, the message “Make America Great Again” is an obvious political message because, yes, it’s the slogan of the Trump campaign and the motto of a political movement whose adherents wish to restore law, order, and common sense in America. The aim is that Americans can prosper, but that has been characterized by Democrats, including Joe Biden, as an extremist movement that endangers the nation and is somehow akin to fascism and white supremacy.
NFL rules forbid the display of any message it deems political – even after a game has been played. San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa, one of the most tenacious defensive players in the league, proudly wore and pointed to his Make America Great Again cap behind other 49ers players who were being interviewed after the team’s win over the Dallas Cowboys. The NFL has fined Bosa $11,255 for violating their rules on displays of political messaging. Bosa doesn’t seem to be concerned about the fine (he probably commands a decent salary). He clearly knew that his overt political display would result in a fine. But he may have felt that getting the message out over the air prior to the election was more important and perhaps even because it shows that NFL players haven’t all bought into the groupthink of the NFL when it comes to political causes and movements.
As George Orwell so slyly articulated, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” The same apparently applies to political sloganeering and clear political messaging in the NFL (and the NBA…and MLB)…
Published in General
Does Elon still have an open offer to pay legal fees for anyone who has been subject to unfair political persecution and treatment by the left?
Make them pay…
The NFL doesn’t want to define “political” because they enjoy the power being subjective gives them. The NFL has become less of a sports league and more of a political force in the last few years. This is why I now only watch the playoffs . . .
Do you think if Nick Bosa had a Harris T-Shirt or Hat would he have gotten in trouble with the league office?
Is there a case where a player did wear Harris insignia stuff and was not disciplined?
looks like there is a rule for any canidate
49ers’ Nick Bosa fined $11,255 by NFL for wearing MAGA hat on field – NBC Sports Bay Area & California
Rule 5, Section 4, Article 8 states a player is prohibited from wearing or displaying a personal message that relates “to political activities or causes, other non-football events, causes or campaigns, or charitable causes or campaigns.”
It’s not about political messaging. It’s about approved political messaging. Bosa is on a $170M contract. The fine is nothing to him. Likely he’ll make more money from the increase in merch sales, and the number of people who start loving the Whiners as a result.
Far more interesting to me is the video of George Kittle shaking hands with all of the military personnel.
Even though a staunch Packers fan (so stupid I bought a valueless stock for my wall), I didn’t follow at all for a couple years at all following “the kneelers”.
One of my sons is a rabid Packers fan (knows all the stats, injury lists, D, O, Secial teams, etc coordinators, so I’ve started watching highlights again – family is more important than politics.
The NFL greed is insane, and I don’t like going to sports bars, so I watch very few full games.
I like to watch football, I don’t really care about all the dumb stuff. I typically watch the games recorded on YouTube TV so I can fast forward through all the nonsense. YTTV hs a “key plays” feature that kicks in part way through the recording and then after the game is over, so you can watch the “high light” reel for teams if you don’t care too much.
Something I’ve really come to enjoy is “Monday Night Football with Peyton & Eli”. They call the game, and often as not get off on some tangent about the inner workings of the game, how plays are called. They have two to three guests on that range from football stars to politicians to movie stars. You might enjoy it.
Obviously the major sports leagues engage in political speech that favors Progressives. It’s part of the reason why interest has suffered. Colin Kapernick, remember him too? He launched a second career leveraging sports into politics and influenced the NFL in mean time.
The NBA is much more blatant and more of a monolith than the NFL. I recall watching team USA Basketball on NBC networks in the Olympics and D. Wade was doing commentary. Wade kept calling out pronouns for the players and saying the occasional weird political thing. His color commentary made watching more annoying. BTW, Wade is also known for trans’ing a son. NBA coach Steve Kerr is also known for getting emotional in some political displays in conferences. The NFL has many religious players and guys who aren’t necessarily political at all but get filed under the “bro culture” moniker which is not leftist. So I think there’s more base level resistance to leftwing politics in the NFL player ranks.
Here’s the basic process as I understand it: I believe the ESG influence has a key role to play in the political and Progressive politics being injected into sports. It has to do with sponsorship money. ESG is the external progressive force applying pressure on companies, while DEI is the internal force of compliance within companies. The CEI criteria affects a company’s ESG rating which could influence its access to capital and financial health. The CEI ratings are created by outside Progressive organizations like the Human Rights Campaign designed to influence. These large publicly traded companies then use their advertising dollars to influence the sports per the ESG-DEI model.
BLM is more than politics though, it was also a hustle. The founders made a lot of money and had lots of free advertising thanks to pro-sports. But BLM sows seeds of bitterness and lies. With regard to sports, BLM had a significant influence in NASCAR (which is traditionally thought to be more conservative in culture). NSACAR didn’t seem to care about the views of its fan base in pushing left-wing politics that included BLM. I imagine, again money from corporate sponsors had a huge role to play. Corporate sponsorship is the lifeblood of NASCAR and motorsports in general. The case of Bubba Wallace and the fake hate crime hoax with a garage door was a flashpoint. Wallace got a BLM sponsorship in 2020 and then started making political comments. Wallace seemed to get what Gad Saad would call a “parasitic mind virus” and suddenly started talking like a progressive cliche machine at times. Then not long after the “garage door hate hoax” was created for Bubba and his BLM sponsorship. The fabricated incident was then leveraged to create pressure on NASCAR and create a PR episode that required the entire sport to do a dog-and-pony show around social justice etc.
The BLM-Bubba-Hoax NASCAR incident was quite possibly the most blatant injection of politics into pro sports in recent memory.
Doesn’t our Bill of Rights call for the Separation of Sports and State? If not, why not?
MLB is bad – moving the All-Star game from GA for the voting laws was really bad. FJB demagogued the issue with the “Worse the Jim Crow” tripe.
Yes, that’s a great example. I withdraw my claim on the Bubba hoax and would endorse the MLB all-star game in Atlanta as the most egregious political case in pro sports recently. It was pretty awful smearing a modest voter integrity and voting access measure. Proving the universe as a sense of humor, the Atlanta Braves went on the wing the World Series later that year too.
Regarding merch.
Harrison Butler, the kicker on the Chiefs has the number one selling jersey.
Me too. I took my stock share off the wall. Stopped watching. Stopped buying anything that contributes to NFL money.
Sent a letter to the team President Mike Murphy announcing my disgust, got a very unsatisfactory response.
I’ve started watching again, mainly because it’s a family thing with my kids. But they broke something in me. I can barely tolerate games, and even watching the Packers has a quality I assume one would have watching an ex spouse.
I gave up on the NFL a decade ago. Listened to the Ruthless Podcast on the drive into work this morning. They didn’t mention a fine, but did mention how something has shifted that Bosa felt comfortable wearing the cap on the field. Also, that a number of touchdown celebration dances this weekend, in college and pros, were Trump’s YMCA dance.
As I recall, they moved the game to Colorado, which had even stronger voting laws.
As does FJB’s home state of Delaware.
NFL viewership hasn’t suffered. There was a blip in the COVID years, but it’s now higher than it’s been in nearly a decade. Most of us don’t give a rip about the politics, we want to see the game.
Butker. Get your kickers straight, man!
Arrgh. Damn Autocorrect.