Tag: sports

Fire your players, Art

The owners are starting to get just a little bit shaky after seeing the ratings drop another 10 percent while fans burn their gear and season tickets:

To Steelers Nation:

I want to reach out to you, the members of Steelers Nation, based on what I believe is a misperception about our players’ intentions in not taking the field for the National Anthem in Chicago. The intentions of Steelers players were to stay out of the business of making political statements by not taking the field. Unfortunately, that was interpreted as a boycott of the anthem – which was never our players’ intention.

Our players come from many different backgrounds and are united by what it means to play for the Pittsburgh Steelers. They are active in their communities and participate regularly in events designed to give back to those communities. And they appreciate the support they get from Steelers fans around the country and here at home. I also know that our players have tremendous respect for the members of our military services, including their teammate Alejandro Villanueva. There was never any desire on the part of our players to show disrespect for our service members.

Yesterday, I received an email from a Steelers fan who said tell the players to just play football. That is exactly what they wanted to do. They wanted their sole focus to be on playing the game, while also coming together as a unified team.

The main thing we can do is learn from this and strive to come together remaining unified as a football team. I believe we are capable of accomplishing this with the support of our fans. Steelers Nation is made up of the best fans in the National Football League. We appreciate your continued support of our players, coaches and staff.

Sincerely,

Art Rooney, II

 He chose… poorly. It’s rather remarkable how many owners are choosing to side with the media, the players, and the league instead of the one thing they actually need: the fans.

The SJW media and the NFL

I appeared on Cernovich Media last night discussing the connection between SJWs in the media and the NFL protests.

 
If you’d like to skip ahead to my appearance, you can click here. Cernovich Media is absolutely killing it on Facebook video; clearly we’re going to have to get rolling with that for Voxiversity and Alt-Hero. Anyhow, my thesis is that it is the media that is primarily responsible for this, not the players, due to the way in which they have tirelessly advocated the cause of Colin Kaepernick’s employment for the last year.

Instead of addressing the anthem protest issue directly last year by disciplining Kaepernick, NFL thought it would go away once the ex-49er quarterback was out of the league. And they probably would have been right, were it not for the media SJWs taking up the cause of Kaepernick’s non-employment as some sort of holy crusade to atone for their having missed the grand campaign for a starting black Super Bowl-winning quarterback of the 1970s and 1980s.

And if you haven’t signed up for the Daily Meme Wars yet, you’re missing out. Don’t do that.

Trump nails down Pennsylvania for 2020

The only Steeler to stand for the national anthem, Alejandro Villanueva, a former US Army Ranger.

Alejandro Villanueva was the lone Pittsburgh Steelers player who appeared on the pitch and sang while the rest of his team remained in the locker room as part of a silent protest that’s sweeping the country’s football pitches. The player, who has served in Afghanistan, has become a simple of patriotism — and now sales of his jersey have gone through the roof. It jumped the Steelers jersey sellers league on Fanatics.com, and now stands at one of the top sellers for the entire league, behind Carson Wentz and Aaron Rodgers.

This will not end well for the NFL. It’s going to be very interesting to see how the Week 3 TV ratings play out. Based on the hints from things such as Villanueva’s jersey sales, I would guess we’ll see a decline of 20 percent or more.

NFL Week Three

Not a lot to say, except I’m not watching this week. The players understand this is about the cultural war. So does the President. I’m not sure what percentage of the NFL-watching public does, but it does appear to be statistically significant if Twitter is any guide.

This sort of calculated and specific disrespect is not incidental. It is intentional. Apparently all the Steelers but one boycotted the anthem. Yes, it’s just symbolism, but symbolism matters. The Right used to understand this. Bud Grant’s Vikings used to practice standing for the national anthem.

American football stars drop to their knees during national anthem at Wembley in protest defying Donald Trump after he said sportsman who ‘disrespect America’ should be SACKED. Players from Jacksonville Jaguars and the Baltimore Ravens dropped to their knees as national anthem played. No players were kneeling during the playing of ‘God Save The Queen’, which followed the US national anthem. 

Regardless, discuss either the protests or the weekend action, as you see fit.

How awesome would it be if Steelers owner Art Rooney released his entire team tomorrow, except for Alejandro Villanueva? Talk about making a statement! They could go winless for the next three years, and they’d still wind up ahead on the merchandise sales alone.

Skol Vikings! I am reliably informed that Minnesota Vikings are the only team to not have a single player kneel for the anthem thus far. The legacy of Bud Grant remains strong.

Meme of the Week

As it turns out, the weekly vote has reliably lined up with the more objective measure of Twitter impressions. DACA Families was the weekly winner, with 32,631 impressions. The least popular was Hotel Catalonia, with only 11,316.

To become a #DailyMemeWarrior and receive the Meme of the Day in your email every weekday morning, sign up here. I have a feeling that tomorrow’s Meme of the Day is going to exceed 50k impressions, quite possibly 100k. This is not it. But it’s good to know the NFL is embracing the fullness of free speech at its games.

And keep this in mind when you consider their mutual responses to President Trump.

SportsCenter‏ @SportsCenter
Roger Goodell and DeMaurice Smith spent part of Saturday discussing how to best handle President Trump’s statements.

Apparently they should have spent more of it. And then kept their mouths shut.

UPDATE: This is an interesting rumor floating around the chans from a purported NFL employee.

Some NFL teams have been looking into firing players who are pulling this protest shit. But their lawyers have all told them, while they can do it, the fired players could then take them to court and win. The 49ers were among these teams, who have consulted their lawyers; hence why CK never got fired. Their lawyers told them it was cheaper to just let him do his bullshit.

Goodell knows he has fucked up big time, but can’t do anything except tacitly let the teams blacklist players who pull this shit. Goodell and most of the coaches know that the players throwing these tantrums have them by the balls.

I think they’re about to find out that not firing them will prove to be considerably more expensive.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin discusses the NFL situation.

We’re seeing drops in attendance.  We’re seeing drops everywhere, in advertising as well and that’s because there’s no business enterprise that is ever going to survive by insulting and trashing its own customer base…

Based on recent events, it would appear far fewer people understand this basic fact of business than you might imagine.

Fire the anthem-protesters

Donald Trump comes out hard against the NFL players protesting during the national anthem:

“We’re proud of our country. We respect our flag,” Trump said to loud applause at a campaign event in Alabama. “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now’? He’s fired! He’s fired!”

Trump said an NFL owner who releases a player would instantly gain broad support across America.

“Some owner’s gonna do that. He’s gonna say, ‘That guy that disrespects our flag? He’s fired. And that owner . . . they’ll be the most popular person in this country. Because that’s total disrespect of our heritage. That’s total disrespect of everything we stand for,” Trump said.

Trump added that he believes fans should walk out if players don’t stand for the anthem.

“If you see it, even if it’s one player,” Trump said, “Leave the stadium.”

It’s a perfectly reasonable stance. We all know that the NFL wouldn’t hesitate to act if players started throwing Nazi salutes; they already come down hard on the expression of any opinion that is negative about homosexuality.

The Rubicon has been decisively crossed, so it’s time to start cracking down on “speech” Americans don’t like.

Always play by the rules that are actually in place, not by the rules that you wish were in place. I won’t say that I’ve entirely given up on the NFL, but I did not buy Game Pass this year and I have yet to watch a single game. I don’t think I will start this weekend either.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s response:

The NFL and our players are at our best when we help create a sense of unity in our country and our culture,” Goodell said. “There is no better example than the amazing response from our clubs and players to the terrible natural disasters we’ve experienced over the last month. Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities.”

I hope one of the NFL players calls out Goodell on this by kneeling while holding up a middle finger or a Nazi salute. It would be amusing to see how fast Red Roger would do an immediate 180.

Demographics is destiny

Adam Carolla is right. LA is now Mexico.

Attendance:

Los Angeles Chargers: 21,054
Los Angeles Galaxy: 25,667

It’s all about the demographics. Even so, an MLS team outdrawing an NFL team at home? The NFL has no idea how much trouble lies ahead thanks to the diversity it has supported over the years. It’s not an accident that every major league sport was invented by white Americans… or white Canadians. Other peoples simply aren’t as interested in them.

NFL Week One

This is the weekly NFL open thread. A reminder: those who attempt to take this opportunity to posture about their television-watching habits and answer a question that no one has asked will be spammed.

Black vs Blue and Green

More unexpected consequences of the NFL anthem protests:

There is new fallout from the fierce debate over Cleveland Browns players kneeling during the national anthem. Cleveland safety forces have backed out of a plan to hold a large flag on the field for the opening game.

A dozen Browns players created a firestorm during a recent preseason game by not standing during the anthem. They created the largest demonstration in the NFL during the anthem since former San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick started his protest more than a year ago.

Some police officers and paramedics are doing something about it. The Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association and ILA Local 1975, representing the city’s dispatchers, EMTs and paramedics, said the Browns came to them weeks ago, and the team wanted city safety forces to hold the flag on the field for the opening game.

EMS union president Daniel Nemeth said it sounded great until a group of Browns players took a knee during the anthem.

“This hit home with me. I am a veteran, an 8-year veteran with the U.S. Marine Corps. So, to disrespect the flag by taking a knee is not something I was going to be a part of,” Nemeth said.

We tracked down police union president Steve Loomis out of state at a police convention.

“I’m here at a national police convention, and soon as they hear that I’m from Cleveland, the first question is ‘What about those stinking Browns?’” Loomis said. “So if the ownership of the Browns and the league are going to allow that type of stuff to happen, and then come to us and say,  ‘We want you to help us with the flag,’ that’s hypocritical. We’re not gonna participate.”

At this rate, the sports media should stop worrying about NFL owners ever hiring Colin Kaepernick -which they will never do anyhow – and start worrying about them having him disappeared.