{"id":7405,"date":"2017-09-25T18:52:28","date_gmt":"2017-09-26T00:52:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=7405"},"modified":"2017-09-25T18:52:28","modified_gmt":"2017-09-26T00:52:28","slug":"remember-football-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2017\/09\/remember-football-entertainment.html","title":{"rendered":"Remember: Football is Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3AArian_Foster_fumble.jpg;<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the bottom line.<\/p>\n

President Trump says<\/a> that NFL owners should fire players who refuse to stand for the national anthem:<\/p>\n

If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The NFL as an organization claims it\u2019s all about free speech.<\/p>\n

And the number of players who kneel or otherwise protest during the anthem, transforming this act from some sort of generalized protest against America into an anti-Trump protest, climbs. \u00a0Blogger Ann Althouse raises the issue of CTE<\/a>, recently again in the news, and observes that liberals were all set to crusade against football due to the brain damage it is causing, but are now caught in the position of defending football instead:<\/p>\n

So, watch the liberal media endeavor to save football from bad old President Trump. He\u2019s a racist. This is his racism once again, stirring up the stupid people who voted for him. . . .<\/p>\n

Let the brain damage continue. We\u2019ve got a culture war to fight.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And in the meantime, the NFL is losing viewers \u2014 a \u201cfact check\u201d rating as false Trump\u2019s claim that ratings are \u201cway down\u201d admits that they are have declined, though, necessarily, the data is incomplete for 2017, and quibbles over what it means to be \u201cway<\/em> down\u201d and whether this is demonstrably caused by the kneeling fracas or other reasons. \u00a0Attendance at games is also down, in some cases, very visibly so<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mollie Hemmingway at The Federalist has a nice piece on \u201c5 Problems With The NFL\u2019s National Anthem Protest<\/a>,\u201d in which she observes, among other things, that the NFL has also been woefully inconsistent, defending this protest but prohibiting\u00a0players who wished to take other actions, such as wearing helmet decals in support of police.<\/p>\n

Now, for the most part, I don\u2019t have a dog in this fight. \u00a0I didn\u2019t grow up in a football-watching family, and don\u2019t have a particular NFL team allegiance now. \u00a0I can see that there is a certain art to football, in the strategy of its plays, the narrative of the 4 downs, the elegance of a Hail Mary pass or a touchdown in which the player shakes off one would-be tackler after another. \u00a0And I do hope that they can figure out how to fix helmets, tackling methods, or whatever is needed to end the head injuries.<\/p>\n

But it is entertainment.<\/p>\n

People watch it to be entertained. \u00a0They don\u2019t want politics in their entertainment \u2014 the purpose of entertainment is to escape politics, as well as all of one\u2019s\u00a0other cares.<\/p>\n

And I suspect that the players themselves, have lost this awareness. \u00a0After all, to them, football is work. \u00a0They get paid for it, and they get paid an extraordinary amount of money. \u00a0The luckiest ones have a charmed career, moving from start high school player to college standout to professional. \u00a0They may, in the end, struggle to find a team that won\u2019t cut them, but in the meantime, they are recipients of adulation from their first high school touchdown. \u00a0For too many of them, this adulation leads them to believe that they are privileged, and can do what they choose on the field and off (hence, reports of domestic violence and drunken misbehavior).<\/p>\n

But if the NFL, and its players, forget that they\u2019re providing an entertainment service, then its customers will find their entertainment elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image: \u00a0https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File%3AArian_Foster_fumble.jpg; By AJ Guel (originally posted to Flickr as Fumble) [CC BY 2.0 (http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s the bottom line. President Trump says that NFL owners should fire players who refuse to stand for the national anthem: If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend! The NFL as an organization claims it\u2019s all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":7406,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[750],"class_list":["post-7405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-football"],"yoast_head":"\nRemember: Football is Entertainment<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"That's the bottom line. 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