Roger Goodell tells NFL owners ‘everyone should stand for the national anthem’

[Stonecloak]

Ugh, when are these people going to realize that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should, or just because you have the freedom to do something doesn’t mean you aught to. The thing goes both ways anyway. You can’t feverishly defend the kneeling players citing free speech and it’s their right while simultaneously demonizing those who feel it’s disrespectful to the flag, they have the same rights, and there’s consequences now when fans will just boycott the league, and not one person can tell me there’s not a better way to express your concern, or will to change your cultures issues. It was a dumb publicity stunt that winded up causing more harm than good.

[Najnaj]

Sports should be a sacred thing, not a platform for your current political beliefs. If you want to make address racial inequalities good for you, make a speech after the NFL game if you want, but don't disrespect the flag or the others that fought for their country because you feel like taking a stand.

You can not call things sacred just because you feel like it. Sports to you, knitting to someone else and music to a third. Before you know it protests are banned everywhere.Besides, they are strictly speaking not protesting, they are simply not participating. You can not force people to join your political beliefs, in this case nationalism, simply because you pay their salary.

[SoSuMe]

This really depends on the job, the state it's in, and what the perceived offense is. In quite a few states, it's entirely legal for a corporation to part ways with an employee that's engaging in speech in the workplace that the company isn't all that keen on.

Thats fine lets see if the company is ready to lose games for the cause my guess is no... a lot of owners also knelt with the players.

[Najnaj]

Then why dont they play the anthem before practice if it part of the job?

Even then it would be enforcing a political belief. It is a valid political view not to be a nationalist and no matter what your salary might be they can not force you to display a certain political opinion.

That they play a national anthem at all before a sporting event is baffling to me. I would guess that most western Europeans would feel the same way I do.

[SoSuMe]

Even then it would be enforcing a political belief. It is a valid political view not to be a nationalist and no matter what your salary might be they can not force you to display a certain political opinion.

That they play a national anthem at all before a sporting event is baffling to me. I would guess that most western Europeans would feel the same way I do.

i completely agree with this.

[Mormolyce]

Ugh, when are these people going to realize that just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should, or just because you have the freedom to do something doesn’t mean you aught to. The thing goes both ways anyway. You can’t feverishly defend the kneeling players citing free speech and it’s their right while simultaneously demonizing those who feel it’s disrespectful to the flag, they have the same rights, and there’s consequences now when fans will just boycott the league, and not one person can tell me there’s not a better way to express your concern, or will to change your cultures issues. It was a dumb publicity stunt that winded up causing more harm than good.

That's not how freedom of speech works. Freedom of speech means they can't be arrested for making this political statement.

It doesn't mean they can't be criticised. It ALSO doesn't mean that those people criticising them cannot ALSO be criticised.

Freedom of speech is not freedom from criticism - for anyone.

[Stonecloak]

That's not how freedom of speech works. Freedom of speech means they can't be arrested for making this political statement.

It doesn't mean they can't be criticised. It ALSO doesn't mean that those people criticising them cannot ALSO be criticised.

Freedom of speech is not freedom from criticism - for anyone.

That’s.what.I.was.saying? Sorry if that wasn’t clear but yea, I agree. The one thing I think we should look at is what is actually happening in reality, and it’s safe to say it has caused more issues than helped anything. The league is now going to take a hit, obviously some of the players already have, and has any heightened awareness, or change taken place that the players kneeling were suggesting? I’d argue no. It’s doing them no good at all.

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Is there any proof that it's losing them money? Everything I've seen so far doesn't prove that in the slightest.

Besides, sometimes it's worth the loss of money depending on what you're protesting. I'm sure a lot of companies lost money when they weren't allowed to hire children workers anymore.

Their ratings have been trending down for a while now, since last season. Probably more now. Last I checked 10% down before this whole thing happened.

[Nihilist74]

I wish america held civil rights as or more sacred than an anthem and a flag.

[Stonecloak]

I wish america held civil rights as or more sacred than an anthem and a flag.

What rights do you speak of?

[Dragonhawk]

Is there any proof that it's losing them money? Everything I've seen so far doesn't prove that in the slightest.

Besides, sometimes it's worth the loss of money depending on what you're protesting. I'm sure a lot of companies lost money when they weren't allowed to hire children workers anymore.

Well they did have a 11% drop in ratings, and they have said that ticket sales are down. A number of TV and radio personalities have announced that they are have cancelled their football package that they had through cable or Direct TV. I havent seen any numbers from the cable companies so i dont know how far the cancellations have spread, but all this shows a trend that people are unhappy with what is going on in the NFL. Have the numbers reached a point where it is putting the NFL in the red? No, but there is a trend and I am sure it is making the NFL owners take notice.

Your example justifying is not really relevant as the protests about child labor are directly related to the company, but the protest by the NFL players has nothing to do with the NFL. It is about a perceived abuse by the police. If they are protesting safely standards, related to the concussion issue in football then that would be more appropriate to the example you gave.

[Mormolyce]

That’s.what.I.was.saying? Sorry if that wasn’t clear but yea, I agree. The one thing I think we should look at is what is actually happening in reality, and it’s safe to say it has caused more issues than helped anything. The league is now going to take a hit, obviously some of the players already have, and has any heightened awareness, or change taken place that the players kneeling were suggesting? I’d argue no. It’s doing them no good at all.

I dunno about that, here we are all talking about it still.

[Stonecloak]

I dunno about that, here we are all talking about it still.

Honestly, talk is cheap. Especially in this case because the perception is wrong in the first place. As a culture they need to help themselves. There’s no privilege, or magic sauce different cultures have that offer success in America. No we don’t all come from the same upbringing or social status, but that’s never going to be completely fair in this economy anyway. As far as the shootings, yes we do need to figure out how to stop the violence, both sides I suppose will have to be responsible for that. Hating on the cops won’t do anything.

[Stonecloak]

So, it was going down already anyway. You say "probably more now" do you have any proof?

No I don’t, it’s just a guess based on the trend. I’ve read it’s been down 18 percent since 2015. So that’s pretty bad, but numbers are always vague anyway. It could be related to something else as well. Like only one team winning a lot.

[Kolbjorn]

So if you owned a business and some of your employees were doing something that loses you money (knowingly doing it at that, they know their actions are going to harm your business and do it anyways), you would be ok with that?

The cat is already out of the bag though, so that simplistic view is no longer valid.

The view that "the players are costing the team money" is based on the idea that racists are the only demographic that watches football.

But here's the thing, the racist demographic is shrinking, and POC demographics are growing. If you're going to tell a demographic to pound sand, do you pick the shrinking one or the growing one?

The owners would have to employ a pretty terrible marketing team to choose the racists as their core future demographic.

Further, the only players that will simply kowtow to demands are the league minimum ones. The stars will be able to make choices (retire, change teams, etc.), and have quite a bit more power than you realize. They're not all replaceable McDonald's employees.


If you want to look into this in another industry, feel free to pull some Budweiser annual reports and/or investor calls, and see what they think is a bigger structural change coming to beer: craft beer or Modelo/Corona/etc.

[I Push Buttons]

The cat is already out of the bag though, so that simplistic view is no longer valid.

The view that "the players are costing the team money" is based on the idea that racists are the only demographic that watches football.

But here's the thing, the racist demographic is shrinking, and POC demographics are growing. If you're going to tell a demographic to pound sand, do you pick the shrinking one or the growing one?

The owners would have to employ a pretty terrible marketing team to choose the racists as their core future demographic.

Further, the only players that will simply kowtow to demands are the league minimum ones. The stars will be able to make choices (retire, change teams, etc.), and have quite a bit more power than you realize. They're not all replaceable McDonald's employees.


If you want to look into this in another industry, feel free to pull some Budweiser annual reports and/or investor calls, and see what they think is a bigger structural change coming to beer: craft beer or Modelo/Corona/etc.

1. The assumption that everyone bothered by these protests is a racist is laughably, absurdly, outrageously retarded.
2. The "people of color" who are interested in football already watch football... There aren't people out there completely uninterested in football who are going to be like "The NFL was nice to BLM, I am going to arbitrarily start watching a sport I previously had no interest in because of that!" So to argue they are gaining more than they are losing by abiding the protests is pretty stupid, especially since year over year NFL ratings are down by a significant margin according to others here. You can't argue the downward trend of television is responsible for 11%-18% rating decreases (like Nexx is doing) in a single year of a particular (at present controversial) program unless you can point out all TV ratings being down that much in the same period.

[Orange Joe]

Both of these responses strike me as virulently wrong. If you're incapable of viewing anyone that thinks people should stand for the anthem as anything other than "racist or stupid", you're failing miserably at basic empathy in exactly the same fashion as the people you're targeting. I'm sure you won't be, but you should both be ashamed.

Since when does blind nationalism = stupid? Yes it's a flaw, but it doesn't mean I think they are all stupid.

[Dextroden]

Since when does blind nationalism = stupid? Yes it's a flaw, but it doesn't mean I think they are all stupid.

No. He's saying you and Nexx are being the Lord's of absurdity by saving the reasons to disagree at only racism and nationalism. Almost like you two think there are no legit reasons to disagree with the protest.

[Orange Joe]

No. He's saying you and Nexx are being the Lord's of absurdity by saving the reasons to disagree at only racism and nationalism. Almost like you two think there are no legit reasons to disagree with the protest.

Where did I say only? You guys love to read things that aren't there. He asked for another reason I gave him another reason.


But now I want your opinion. If it isn't racism or nationalism that is driving these people what is?

[Dextroden]

Where did I say only? You guys love to read things that aren't there. He asked for another reason I gave him another reason.


But now I want your opinion. If it isn't racism or nationalism that is driving these people what is?

The fact you're trying to come up with a single reason to attach it to doesn't convince me otherwise.

A reason to disagree is that the grand majority of these people are phonies and only jumped on the wagon because Trump had a tantrum, not to protest something they had a year to follow Caepernick in doing. But why not join him at the start? Oh right. Career risk.

There's also the impression that kneeling is the most that will happen. No one would dare refuse to play unless they had true conviction. I don't buy it when you do something that CAN be ignored. If people that were angered, and I mean actually angered, by the kneeling, just wait ten minutes. Protest avoided.

I don't think it's disrespectful, nor does it break any laws. But for the same reason the players can do this, people can have any opinion on these kinds of things. Or do you want to further mimic Trump and make it forbidden to criticize people?

Hey look. A reason to disagree that isn't nationalism or racism. It's like a Unicorn, right?

[Orange Joe]

The fact you're trying to come up with a single reason to attach it to doesn't convince me otherwise.

A reason to disagree is that the grand majority of these people are phonies and only jumped on the wagon because Trump had a tantrum, not to protest something they had a year to follow Caepernick in doing. But why not join him at the start? Oh right. Career risk.

There's also the impression that kneeling is the most that will happen. No one would dare refuse to play unless they had true conviction. I don't buy it when you do something that CAN be ignored. If people that were angered, and I mean actually angered, by the kneeling, just wait ten minutes. Protest avoided.

I don't think it's disrespectful, nor does it break any laws. But for the same reason the players can do this, people can have any opinion on these kinds of things. Or do you want to further mimic Trump and make it forbidden to criticize people?

Hey look. A reason to disagree that isn't nationalism or racism. It's like a Unicorn, right?

Here I thought we were giving reasons to be upset about the protest. You just said you aren't upset about the protest. So no you didn't give a reason.

Try again?