Political football

The football season offers a break from news of politicians, police shootings, and international persecution. But this season the line between politics and football is blurred. The protests San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick began are spreading across the country as NFL players kneel or raise their fists during the national anthem. A recent poll from Rasmussen Reports found more than one-third of surveyed Americans saying they are less likely to watch the NFL games because of the protests.

Over the first four weeks of the season, NFL television viewership was down 11 percent: League executives sent out a reassuring memo to worried team owners. Since advertisers pay for a certain number of “eyes-on-their-ads,” they were beginning to demand part of their money back, with the league and networks losing millions in revenue. The hashtag #BoycottNFL is sweeping Twitter, but African-Americans said they were more likely to watch games this season because of players like Kaepernick.

The racial divide extends into the locker room itself. NFL players have tended to vote Republican, according to Bleacher Report, but this season black and white players are splitting over politics. “Things are different when it comes to Trump,” said ESPN analyst Damien Woody: “A white player may parrot something Trump says, and the black player may think, ‘Oh, that’s how you feel?’ And it could cause problems.”

Trump has looked for endorsements from NFL athletes and coaches. He scored a four-minute endorsement speech from Rex Ryan, head coach of the Buffalo Bills, but some of Ryan’s players weren’t happy. White players often said they appreciate Trump’s bluntness and appearance of strength, but black players were often negative and said some friendships with white teammates were breaking down over political differences. At least one coach banned any talk about Trump because of the arguments. One player joked that the Republican candidate is “the most divisive figure in the league not named Roger Goodell,” the controversial league commissioner.

National anthem arguments and divisions are even going local as some high-school and children’s teams join the Kaepernick protests. When a team of 11- and 12-year-olds in Beaumont, Texas, knelt during the anthem, the team and coaches received death threats. Before a game in Alabama, the announcer, Allen Joyner, shouted across the field: “If you don’t want to stand for the national anthem, you can line up over there … and let our military personnel take a few shots at you since they’re taking shots for you.” Crowd members cheered.

Others saw the protests as a manifestation of American freedom. Bob Blair, a press box manager in Aurora, Colo., watched his high-school football team kneel. After the game, the 81-year-old told The New York Times he thought the students didn’t understand how little they were oppressed: Even though many adults saw kneeling during the anthem as disrespect, kids were free to do so.