If you listen to sports talk radio, you’ll know that the NFL’s recent announcement about the National Anthem has more than a few detractors. I’ve heard everything from it’s a free speech issue, to Goodell muffed it, to the owners were not unanimous (some abstained), to the players union knew nothing about it, to why would we care?
Here’s what I think because that is, after all, why you are here.
As employees of private businesses the owners and the NFL can tell players what to do on the clock. We’ve made that point repeatedly. Protest on your own time. Don’t like it, quit. You can be replaced.
I’ve got more than a few stories from my days managing businesses where employees who had grown a sense of entitlement found themselves unemployed for their behavior. Yes, entitled athletes with massive skillsets are harder to replace than skilled employees in most professions, but their effect on “teammates,” the work environment, and customers is the same.
Before the 2010 season (possibly 2009?) players were not even on the field for the anthem, os, so I hear. No opportunity for controversy there. So why’d they change it? Why didn’t they change it back?
The new policy says to stay in the locker room if you don’t want to stand for the pledge. This compromise doesn’t solve the “problem.” Fans can see who is and is not on the field. Fans may also assume that absence means one thing when it may not.
As a subtext to that, from my post announcing the new policy, and it’s abundance of cultural Marxist language,
“… in a Country that openly practices Marxism if an athlete didn’t show up on the field and stand for the “flag” and the “anthem” they’d be ex-athletes. With a short future as an air breather, whose family members would be forever disgraced IF they didn’t share their fate.”
More than a few of these pampered millionaires need a lesson along the lines of Colin Kaepernick. Sadly, that hasn’t happened. Although the Red Sox did just cut ties with Hanley Ramirez who while decent this year (until recently) has a career-high average as a pain in the ass bonus baby who has been more trouble than he was worth.
Management’s fault, yes. And they’ve been paying for that. But that’s changing.
The one thing the NFL did do right was here we are in late May, talking about the frikkin NFL. In a world where any press is good press, Goodell and Company have a way of capturing attention. Too bad it probably won’t translate into eyeballs come gameday as people continue to abandon the product with extreme prejudice.
