Politics In Football, Is It right?
By Luke Zegunis
Why do Americans love football so much? It could be the the big hits, the touchdowns or even the cheerleaders. But I will tell you what football fans don’t want to see, and that’s politics. That’s why ratings were down nearly 8% in 2016 after the whole Colin Kaepernick controversy. The NFL has paid greatly for the way they handled this issue and less and less people are watching games. Politics have their own channel to be watched and that’s on the news, so when a sports lover wants to watch a football game that’s what they should watch, politics need to stay out of this amazing sport.
In 2016, 49’ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick was spotted sitting during the national anthem. When asked about it after the game he responded, “ I won’t stand ‘to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people”. This sparked loads of controversy and many players and even teams began to follow in his footsteps. Teams even refused to come out of the locker to show respect to our flag. But this isn’t very fair to our armed forces who fight every day for us to be the country we are. Take the Pittsburgh Steelers right tackle Alejandro Villanueva for example. He served 3 tours in Afghanistan before he started playing in the NFL. Imagine how he felt as he walked out on the field alone to stand for his flag while the rest of his team was sitting inside the locker room.This along with many other things angered sports fans around the nation causing NFL ratings to plummet. The NFL then “kicked” Kolin out of the league, in other words the teams were all too scared to pick him up due to the potential backlash it may have on their team. And to this day he is without a team, and he may never play this sport again.
How could a man go from leading his team to a superbowl to never touching the field again in the span of 3 years? Politics. Whether his cause was right or wrong it, it’s not to be in this sport. In reality, the argument of politics does more hurt than help, it causes conflict everywhere, including my dinner table every thanksgiving! So what make people think its a good idea to bring it up on national tv with millions of fans watching. What angers me about the whole thing was young children all around the world would take a knee for a cause many of them didn’t even know or have an opinion on. They did it because one of the people they look up to did. Many people in the NFL don’t realize the position of influence they have on society and one mistake could impact thousands. That’s why when Colin Kaepernick decided to take a knee it had such great effects. This incident has such great effects that its still relevant today when celebrities and performers have debated whether skipping out on this years superbowl. Names as big as Rihanna and Cardi B have even pledged against performing in the halftime show. Not to mention all of the political commercials that will occur come Superbowl Sunday. All of this drama doesn’t belong on the football field. The NFL has been around for almost 100 years now(founded in 1920), we’ve seen its ups and its downs and all and all people still love the sport. But everyone will agree it really isn’t what it used to be. With all of the rule changes and stupid touchdown celebrations the sport is barely recognizable. Add politics to the mix and we have a whole different game.
Now more people are focused on uniforms, celebrations and politics more than the actual game itself. NFL owners care more about the money than the success of their team. This is why more football lovers are moving over to college football and even canadian football. True fans love the sport and fake fans love the drama. Politics aren’t only affecting the NFL though but they are also affecting the NBA and many other sports. Pro players like Lebron James are expressing their feelings. Recently James talked about NFL owners when he said, “In the NFL they got a bunch of old white men owning teams and they got that slave mentality,And it’s like, ‘This is my team. You do what the [expletive] I tell y’all to do. Or we get rid of y’all.” How does his claim hold so much power when he didn’t even go to college. People will believe him only on the basis that he is pro athlete. He could know absolutely nothing about politics and still so many will believe him because of the power he holds. This power is exactly why we can’t let athletes talk politics. They have so much control and many don’t know the power they have. Millions watch what they say and do. And young kids all are copying these sometimes terrible actions.
Politics are slowly entering sports whether you like it or not. They are influencing traditions like the national anthem and affecting sports as we know them. More and more athletes have become outspoken and are imprinting a vision on kids mind. We don’t need any of this. We can’t let this outburst of opinion affect the sports us americans love and play. Because at the end of the day you turn on the game to watch the game and not the drama. We need to keep the focus on the actual game and not the players own personal opinion. Football is such a beautiful sport, it’s been around for nearly one hundred years and if this trend continues it may not be around in the next one hundred. So as the Superbowl looms over us, just remember why we watch football. Not for the commercials, or the halftime performance, and for many of us not even for our team. We watch it because we love it.
