Sports

Authored by Jonah Bennett via The Daily Caller,

The NFL announced Saturday that there isn’t going to be any change to its national anthem policy, despite an escalating boycott of games over Veterans Day weekend.

The Facebook page “Boycott the NFL” has asked all its followers to celebrate Veterans Day weekend by refusing to watch NFL games “in solidarity with veterans around the country,” given that players are still engaging in national anthem protests and NFL policy remains the same, The Washington Times reports.

Hours before President Donald Trump landed in Beijing earlier today, news of a potential diplomatic crisis in the making emerged when the Wall Street Journal and other media outlets reported that three UCLA college basketball players had been detained in China for shoplifting.

In a singificant escalation in the ongoing NFL feud, which one month ago was pushed into overdrive following Trump's slamming of "anthem kneelers", and which now threatens to set players against team owners, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and Houston Texans owner Bob McNair will be deposed and asked to turn over all cellphone records and emails in relation to the Colin Kaepernick collusion case against the NFL, ESPN's Adam Schefter reports quoting a league source.

ESPN’s decision to suspend host Jemele Hill last month after her second violation of the company’s social media policy (she tweeted that people should boycott advertisers of the Dallas Cowboys after its owner sided with President Trump) did little to stanch the steady bleed of paying customers that is threatening the erstwhile “World Leader in Sports.”

The ongoing NFL "kneeling" protests are starting to have a major impact on downstream businesses, and none more so than Papa John's pizza. Earlier this week, the Sports Business Journal reported that Papa John's in-game pizza sales have fallen since President Donald Trump encouraged people to boycott the NFL in late September.