NFL: The Protest Turned Into a Big Business

 

In August 2016 Colin Kaepernick sat on a bench during the national anthem. Then he knelt. He did not shout he did not burn flags he did not block streets. He simply took a knee to the ground while The Star Spangled Banner played before San Francisco 49ers games. His message I will not show pride for a flag that oppresses people of color.

Kaepernick was not protesting the national anthem nor the United States nor his employers or the NFL. His protest was against police brutality injustice and a system he believed was killing people of color. Years of watching videos of men of color dying at the hands of police had convinced him something had to be done. Eric Garner Michael Brown Tamir Rice Philando Castile. The names and bodies kept piling up.

Every Sunday of the season Kaepernick knelt during the national anthem. Each week another teammate joined him. Other players of color. More and more until the action became impossible to ignore. Up to two hundred players protested in a single game day. For people of color this was an act of courage. For white nationalists it was treason.

A year later Donald Trump demanded that team owners fire players who knelt during the anthem. The NFL panicked. The NFL wanted to stop players of color from continuing their protests. At the end of the season no team would sign Kaepernick. It was expected that his activism would cost him a promising career.

But the NFL was also losing a lot. People stopped watching games and buying merchandise. Black and Latino audiences were leaving them. The NFL needed credibility with minorities to stop the damage. No NFL team hired Kaepernick. But the NFL hired the richest rapper in the world Jay Z and his entertainment company Roc Nation.

Jay Z would take charge of the halftime show during the Super Bowl showing an approach to social justice initiatives. Jay Z said his hiring was a step from kneeling to action. However Kaepernick was not hired and hiring Roc Nation was a blatant marketing whitewash to improve the NFLs reputation. The NFL was using Jay Z to clean its image and turn so called social justice into a successful business. Thanks to the richest musician in the world the NFL had taken over the narrative of the movement it controlled it and exploited it to the maximum in the media it began to profit from it.

The NFL is one of the most powerful sports organizations in the United States with a value exceeding one hundred billion dollars. Its thirty two teams belong to billionaires who have donated millions to political causes. In the 2023 2024 election cycle these owners donated at least twenty eight million dollars. Eighty three percent went to conservative candidates and causes.

Since 2020 owners of American sports teams have contributed one hundred thirty two million dollars. Ninety five percent went to Republicans. This trend is accentuated in their support for Donald Trump the same president who called kneeling players sons of bitches.

Rob Walton Walmart heir and co owner of the Denver Broncos donated seventeen point six million dollars in 2024 to Republicans. Woody Johnson owner of the New York Jets and close Trump ally donated four point one million in 2024 including one million to the super PAC Make America Great Again Inc that directly supported Trumps campaign.

David Tepper owner of the Carolina Panthers donated four point nine million in 2024 to Republicans. Stephen Ross owner of the Miami Dolphins organized a fundraiser for Trump in 2019. Robert Kraft owner of the New England Patriots and personal friend of Trump contributed one million dollars to Trumps presidential inauguration in 2017. These are the men who decided Colin Kaepernick did not deserve to play in their league. And the ones Jay Z decided to do business with.

Kaepernick paid the price for his courage. His career ended at age twenty nine. He never played again. And the league that destroyed him found a way to capitalize on his movement without giving him credit or compensation.

Jay Z defended his decision arguing he had moved past the protests and it was time for concrete actions. That he could do more by working inside the system. A twenty five million dollar business opportunity that turned into a five year extension. More influence more power more money. The man who said we have moved past kneeling never had to kneel.

Yesterday Sunday many called Bad Bunnys halftime performance at the Super Bowl a cultural triumph a hard blow to racism and the Trump administration. Many conservatives curiously only called to change the channel during the halftime show but no one called to boycott the entire game or not watch it. The event took place in California the state that buys the most Tesla electric cars made by Elon Musk the richest man in the world. The one who deceived many by polluting enormously while building and selling electric cars that do not pollute. The one who talked about colonizing Mars and today announces he will only reach the Moon. The biggest scammer in the world and one of the men who invested the most and benefited from Donald Trumps electoral victory.

While Musk spoke horrors about the woke virus and liberal decay in California Musk sold thousands of Tesla cars to Californians without any problem. Perhaps Bad Bunny singing in Spanish at the halftime show can be something historic for the entertainment world. But at the level of protest and dissent the NFL continues to control and manipulate the supposed rebellion. It continues to profit economically from it. And it does so shamelessly in a supposed bastion of Democratic liberals. Protest is now a product. Resistance is now a brand. And we all applaud while this happens and they ask us what kind of American are you.