Case Study: NFL Employees Bend the Knee

Despite the fact that baseball is known as Americas pastime, it is professional football that dominates.

For years, the National Football League (NFL) has earned more money for the league and its owners than any other professional sport. Every Sunday, Monday night, and then Thursday night, millions of Americans are glued to their TV screens, tuning into the NFL.

For many years, the NFL seemed indestructible. But recently, the league has begun to suffer serious problems, from a rash of brain injuries reported by former players to charges of domestic violence against NFL stars. In both cases, the league was slow to acknowledge the problems and only reluctantly agreed to pay restitution in response to the brain injury scandal and to harden its rules and begin employee training in terms of the domestic violence issue.

But perhaps the NFLs most perplexing problem began in the preseason of 2016, when a prominent player refused to stand during the playing of the U.S. national anthem.

A Quarterback Kneels

After a rash of high-profile confrontations across the country between police and African American protestorsseveral resulting in the deaths of unarmed civiliansSan Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick chose to show his displeasure for police brutality and racial inequality by first sitting and then kneeling during the playing of the national anthem before a preseason game. Kaepernick, himself, was of mixed race who was adopted at birth by a white couple. The Kaepernick family moved to California when Colin was young, and he became a star baseball and football player in high school and then was recruited to play football at the University of Nevada.

Kaepernicks protest started relatively innocently but then began to send shock waves throughout the league, where standing for the pre-game Star Spangled Banner was expected of all players. The rough-and-tumble NFL, after all, was the sport most associated with battle and the military²² and defense of America and its flag, for which soldiers go to war.

As the 2017 season progressed, Kaepernick continued to kneel for the anthem, and pressure on the NFL increased. The quarterback explained that he was moved to protest in the spirit of the Black Lives Matter movement that took serious issue with the treatment that police forces extended to African Americans they pursued or had in their custody.

When Kaepernick was pressed to defend why his actions werent disrespectful of the American flag, he responded that he couldnt stand for a flag of a country that oppresses black people and people of color and that the reasons for his protest transcended football. As criticism of his actions mounted, Kaepernick committed to donating $1 million to communities fighting racial injustice.

A 49er teammate, Eric Reid, joined the quarterback in pre-game kneeling protests, and other players around the league began to take note of the protest actions.

A President Erupts

As the NFL kneeling protest began to pick up steam, so, too, did the criticism of it.

The criticism was particularly vitriolic on Fox News and other conservative news outlets, where the players were accused of being anti-patriotic and of demeaning not only the American flag but also all of the brave soldiers who had foughtand sometimes diedto defend the flag in battle.

The chorus of condemnation was led by one individual in particularthe President of the United States. As players continued to kneel prior to NFL games, Donald Trump drew more incensed. At a political rally in Alabama in September 2017, Trump told the crowd he believed NFL players who kneel during the anthem should be let go. As the President prosaically put it, Get that son of a b*tch off the field right now. Out! Hes fired.

And with those words, the battle was joined.

The Presidents words seemed to galvanize NFL players. The union representing NFL players immediately fired back saying it would defend the players right to freedom of expression, regardless of what the President thought.

The next week, 200 players across the NFL, largely in defiance of President Trumps comments, joined the protest by kneeling or linking arms with teammates (Figure 11-8). Some teams opted to stay in their locker rooms during the national anthem ahead of their games, in order to avoid the controversy.

For his part, the President wasnt backing down. On the contrary, Trump defended his comments and said the league should make a rule against kneeling during the anthem. If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our flag and country, you will see change take place fast, the President threatened in subsequent tweets.

Meanwhile, since the controversy started, NFL viewership, always the most robust among sports networks, had fallen off, and longtime sponsors, including one of the leagues lead sponsors, Papa Johns Pizza, began to complain.

It was time for the NFL, itself, to take a stand, either backing up its employees or its fans and sponsors.

A League Punts

The NFL and its commissioner were in a box, damned if they do and damned if they dont.

Commissioner Roger Goodell had served NFL owners since 2006, becoming the highest paid sports league commissioner with an annual salary that in 2015 exceeded $44 million. In the kneeling controversy, Goodell was caught between owners like the Dallas Cowboys Jerry Jones and Houston Texans Bob McNair, who wanted players to stand for the anthem, and the players, 70% of whom were black.

Owner McNair didnt help matters when he was quoted as commenting on the player protests, We cant have the inmates running the prison. Most of Houstons players followed the remark by kneeling during the anthem at their next game.

With the controversy reaching a fever pitch, Commissioner Goodell decided not to decide.

As for Colin Kaepernick, after being dropped by the 49ers, he waited for another team to sign him to help with the quarterbacking chores. Despite the fact Kaepernick had proven himself a seasoned NFL quarterback in prime physical condition, no other NFL team came forward to enlist his services. At the start of the 201819 season, Nike announced that it had chosen its feature athlete for the companys 30th Anniversary Just Do It campaign. His name: Colin Kaepernick.

Please Answer all Questions in Paragraph Form and use context from both the case study and the chapters.

- How would you assess the NFLs handling of the kneeling controversy?

- Had you been Roger Goodells public relations advisor, how would you have suggested he handle the players in the midst of the kneeling movement?

- How would you contrast the NFL and NBA approaches to the national anthem controversy?