Friday, October 14, 2016

Fans Are Leaving The NFL

From an ESPN Magazine article:
"The Star-Spangled Banner and American athletics have a nearly indissoluble marriage. Hatched during one war, institutionalized during another, this song has become so entrenched in our sports identity that it's almost impossible to think of one without the other.” 
“Those chords were ringing loudly on Sept. 17, 2001, the day Major League Baseball resumed following 9/11. The country was in mourning, hurting in ways it could hardly have imagined a week earlier. And when the nation collectively decided to right itself, to acknowledge tragedy while reclaiming everyday life, it turned to sports -- and to the anthem. Across MLB, teams surrounded the song with tributes to the victims and the country's public servants. In Los Angeles, police officer Rosalind Iams sang the song while members of the Dodgers and Padres helped firefighters and police officers unfurl a colossal stars and stripes that stretched almost entirely across the playing field. That same night in Pittsburgh, two members of the Air Force Reserve were called on to sing the anthem as spectators donned ‘I Love New York’ buttons. And in every ballpark for weeks afterward, tears were shed over what it took Francis Scott Key's lyrics to remind them of: ‘Our flag was still there.’"
The song is sacred and its first unbreakable bond with the sports world began in 1918 during Game 1 of the World Series between the Red Sox and the Cubbies.  The assembled crowd sat silent during Boston’s 1-0 victory.  The Cubs’ front office noticed they sang along as a military band played the anthem during the seventh-inning stretch.  The band was instructed to play the anthem for the next two games with the hope of exciting fans at the ballpark.  The Red Sox took the practice a step further when the series moved back to Fenway making it a part of the pregame festivities.  The rest, as they say, is history.

NFL ratings are falling.  A new article by the Sporting News released Monday questions whether the NFL might be looking in the right spot for its ratings woes.

The ivory tower dwellers of the League apparently want to blame the precipitous drop on live streaming, Smartphones, presidential debates, not knowing what is and isn’t a catch, Commissioner Roger Goodell’s piss-poor judgment, over-exposed sports divas and referee-controlled games.

That’s certainly part of it, but the truth is nobody wants a sanctimonious, toupee-wearing ghoul like Bob Costas spending halftime on an anti-Second Amendment rant.  His blather wasn’t about the tragic murder-suicide of Chief’s player Jovan Belcher and his girlfriend Kasandra Perkins.  It was about scoring points with his progressive pals in the media.

The liberal agenda is infiltrating our sports culture.  NFL fans are increasingly fed up with gestures and protests. 

They’ve come for the teams who gather in a circle at midfield after a game to show gratitude and unity, they’ve come after Old Glory and now they’ve come for our anthem.

I have joined the NFL boycott.  You can call it grandstanding if you want, but I know the difference between an over-hyped mediocre-at-best athlete like Colin Kaepernick and what this country has given him and his “sort”.

Whether her close personal friendship with the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was an influence or not, staunchly liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently expressed her thoughts on the anthem protest by 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

"I think it's really dumb of them," Ginsburg said. "Would I arrest them for doing it? No. I think it's dumb and disrespectful. I would have the same answer if you asked me about flag burning. I think it's a terrible thing to do, but I wouldn't lock a person up for doing it.  If they want to be stupid, there's no law that should be preventive.  If they want to be arrogant, there's no law that prevents them from that.  What I would do is strongly take issue with the point of view that they are expressing when they do that."

Kaepernick told reporters on Wednesday “it is disappointing to hear a Supreme Court justice call a protest against injustices and oppression ‘stupid, dumb’ in reference to players doing that.” 

The San Francisco 49ers quarterback said that “people are getting too caught up in the flag.  At the end of the day, the flag is just a piece of cloth and I am not going to value a piece of cloth over people’s lives,” he said. "That’s just not something I can do, it’s not something I feel morally right doing and my character won’t allow me to do that.”

I hope this arrogant sumbitch doesn’t get hurt in Sunday’s game against the Bills.  His obscene and undeserved salary of $14.5 million would be fully guaranteed in 2017 if he were injured and couldn’t pass a physical next April 1.

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