Sports

From the very first Trump tweet, and each successive show of solidarity from league executives and owners since, we've maintained that the NFL was fighting a losing battle by politicizing their content.  As we've said before, while 100% of Americans may be able to agree that they love watching football, roughly 50% are going to disagree with whatever political view, whether right or left, that league executive, players and/or owners decide to publicly cram down their throats.

Probably just a coincidence... or just transitory, but The online ticket reseller TickPick told The Washington Examiner that sales have dropped 17.9 percent, far more than the usual Week Three fall...

With the NFL finding itself trapped in a vise of sliding viewership on one hand, and a sudden plunge in its favorability as a result of the ongoing "kneeling" feud with President Trump, which according to a just released POLITICO/Morning Consult poll has plunged from 30% on September 21 to just 17% on September 28, the most unfavorable in history...

... other sports franchises are desperate to avoid the backlash that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell appears to have unleashed upon his league.

According to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, the National Football League is seen as more unfavorable than ever before. 

"The NFL's net favorability has dropped from 30% on September 21 to 17% on September 28," the poll shows.

Do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of the following - National Football League?

Source: Morning Consult Intelligence

Among Trump supporters, as would be expected, the collapse is remarkable...

Source: Morning Consult Intelligence

President Donald Trump’s feud with the NFL erupted nearly a week ago when he demanded that NFL franchise owners should “get that son of a b***h off the field” when they see players kneeling during the national anthem.  Since then, league owners have discovered, to their surprise, that millions of Americans – and more importantly, millions of NFL fans – agree with the president, who encouraged them to boycott the league until it agrees to ban kneeling during the anthem.