I have not been blogging about College Football this year. I, like some other, have been losing my interest in American Football. I have found other things to occupy me on Saturday. There are many reasons for this. Mostly, I do not enjoy seeing the same teams win year after year. Like many other sports, however, I feel that Football forgets to put the fans first.
I believe in the first amendment and free speech, and I celebrate it. However, my love of the game diminished when I saw Colin Kaepernick take a knee during the national anthem last year, and see many players in all sorts of sport events all over sport follow suit.
Every single month, I pay $90 to Direct TV. My apartment complex "offers" a media package. They offer it as in, "you take it or you can find somewhere else to live." Most places around town do this. Until I can take out a mortgage and find a place of my own, I have to live with this. A little over 1/3 of that fee, I am not entirely certain of the exact amount because Direct TV does not break it down for me, goes toward my internet connection. Behind that, the second largest part of the package is ESPN, at least that is according to my research.
Even though I live 500 miles from Denver and 600 miles from Phoenix, I can't watch the Rockies or the Diamondbacks on TV. MLB blacks out those games in my area so that the local stations who cover those teams can broadcast those games without competition from ESPN. But for my $90, I do not get the cable stations that cover the closest MLB teams to my home, because there is not enough interest in those teams to warrant including it in the base package.
How do I get repaid for the $90 extra dollars? I get politics shoved down my throat.
Sports is entertainment. It is supposed to give me a release from the pressures of the real world. It is supposed to give me pride in my community. The National Anthem at the beginning of the game honors those who made this all possible...at least it should.
But it is not really the ingratitude for the country that makes me upset. It's the ingratitude for the fans. Where does your paycheck come from?
Collin Kaepernick's salary was 11.9 million in 2016. The San Francisco 49er's probably did not make enough money from selling tickets to pay their players. The average ticket price at Levi's stadium is reported to be $117. The stadium has a capacity of 68,000 seats. This means that the 49ers make just under 8 million per game from ticket sales. This is 63 million for the entire season if the team does not make the playoffs. Kaepernick is not the only millionaire on the team. The typical NFL team makes much more money from sponsorship, TV revenue, licensing and other activities.
Two years ago, the biggest NFL sponsor was Gatorade. This would not be possible if Gatorade didn't sell so well at your local Piggly Wiggly. The reason why Gatorade sells so well? Sports and athletes at all levels. Sports drinks are even beginning to catch soda in their popularity.
The second largest NFL sponsor, and probably the largest sponsor of sports in the entire world is in your wallet. It's not Capital One, it's Visa.
The other big sponsors of the NFL and of sports in general are names that you and I use every day. FedEx, Frito Lay, Mars snacks and Pepsi are all big sponsors.
The point is, no matter where you turn, the money that funds sports ultimately comes from people like you and me. All of us are helping to pay for an NFL team even if we are hundreds of miles from the nearest NFL stadium and never watch a single game on TV. Even if we are not subscribers to ESPN or any cable TV package that includes it. Chances are, no matter how hard you try, you can't avoid paying for sports in this country unless you live on a self-sustaining farm in a county that is too small to sponsor a high school sports team, don't have any media in your home and never drive into town. Where in America can you do that?
If you live in a sports town, you pay dearly for your team. Tax money is diverted from roads, schools, other infrastructure, police, fire and other essential services to pay for stadiums and arenas. If you don't pay, your team moves.
A strike against sports will not work because it is impossible to boycott every dollar that flows into the National Football League, or any other sports league.
How do we get repaid for our sponsorship of sports? We see our athletes take a knee at a time when they should show respect.
Do things need to change in this country? Absolutely they do.
Are racism, sexism, homophobia and ethnic discrimination still big problems in the United States? Certainly.
Do we need to call attention to solving the problem? Yes.
Is kneeling for the National Anthem fixing the problem? No. It is fanning the flames. It is deepening the divide instead of healing it.
There are better ways to deal with these problems. Yes, there are.
Does kneeling for the flag call attention to you the player, or to the problem you want to solve. For Collin Kaepernick, one is the same as the other. That is really the problem that I have with it all. These issue are bigger than any one person. It is killing my enthusiasm for sports in general and I am not alone. I don't need this in my life. I live in Utah, and I am a tank full of gas away from the most scenic places in the world. I can get my sports fix by doing things I enjoy, and perhaps should have done when I was younger.
But there is a problem and how do we solve the problem? Education.
Instead of taking a knee before the anthem, do what Major League Soccer does. Run a stadium ad before every game. Run the add on TV before you show the national anthem. How about this statement before every game:
"Hello, this is NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. In the NFL we welcome those from all races. We don't pay our employees less because they are female. We don't turn away anyone who is gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or transgender. We don't discriminate against anyone who was born in a different country. We respect people from all religions, including those who don't believe in a supreme being at all. We encourage all of America to follow our example. Please rise and remove your hats as Boy George sings our National Anthem."
