It is evident that protesting athletic events has been a common trend over the course of time, and now with the National Football League’s constant turmoil, protesting is now more common than ever before.  Along with the current protests, there have also been past instances where athletes have protested the National Anthem, but none have garnished more popularity and criticism than those taking place right now in the world of sports.  The NFL is clearly where the main protests are occurring and being broadcasted in the mainstream news, but now with the NBA season starting, basketball players are just as willing to make a national stance. Sports entertainment is one of the top most consumed business on the planet and with the NFL having billions of views per season, this is a problem that is affecting the United States population as a whole.  The protesting of the National Anthem has led the majority of fans and citizens across the nation, including myself, to believe that some of these acts are disrespectful to both our flag and great country when our nation deserves to be respected.

Although the media portrays specific protests as bad-mannered, athletes protest for two main reasons: the disunity between races in America and police brutality against African Americans. There have been many instances throughout this year that show how players of different races have come together to shed light on the lack of unity and police brutality.  Equality within teams is a prominent theme as seen through Chris Long, “putting his arm behind Malcolm Jennings, African American, while Jennings raised his fist in the air” (Mather).  This simple gesture by both players shows communities and different races uniting and coming together.  It takes a lot for some of these athletes to muster up the courage and guts to perform the courageous in front of millions both on the field and those watching at home. These athletes “show guts knowing that they are going to get judged by the public” for the protests that they do, but yet they still “stand up for what they believe in” (Mower).  Athletes are willing to take the chance, knowing it will be worth it in the long run if police brutality drastically changes and people start to better come together regardless of race. The trend is not new at all, however, as seen through of the most famous instances years ago at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. These protests were a response to civil rights challenges where black athletes out rightly boycotted the Olympics due to the racial injustices going on in America at the time. Black athletes were willing to give up their Olympic title for the cause, claiming that they “would not participate for The United States” (Hartmann).  Although they attended the event and remained silent during the National Anthem, when they got on the podium to receive their medals, everyone was forced to think about the injustices that were occurring. Many athletes claim that they are not disrespecting the flag, but rather drawing attention to the inequality in the United States, such as the Cleveland Browns team who came out with the Cleveland Police Department and linked arms with them to show their agreement and to try and get passed the police brutality.  Also, referencing back to the raised fist by Eagles, Malcolm Jennings, there is “no sign of disrespect to the flag or country” in that act of protest (Tatum).  Another view could be the athletes protesting could only affect the people who watch the games and shouldn’t be viewed as a problem.  Someone who does not watch sports isn’t affected by the protests and therefore the protests can only be disrespectful to those who watch sports and the protests can only change the racial tension in the sports. 

The Protests in sports can be seen as not just a means to stop racial injustice or police brutality, but a jab at what this country has become.  The NFL for example isn’t the only league that participates in protests yet they are the major force behind it.  Excluding the playoffs and Super bowl there on average sixteen and a half million viewers per game, with each team playing sixteen games there are two hundred and fifty six regular season games played each year. That is equivalent to four and a quarter billion views each year, so the protests are reaching a lot of people and that isn’t to count the people that don’t watch football and see this on every news station there is.  This didn’t happen last year but you can bet that at this years’ Super bowl there will be protests of the National Anthem because of how much it has grown and the amount of people that are going to be watching the players will try and make another statement.  With the media introducing these protests to the country people are starting to take sides on what they believe or do not believe in.  The first thing that I noticed was the distaste in the majority of fans mouths about the protests.  One of the articles that I found had attached a nice supportive piece on whether or not the protests were disrespectful or not and listed interesting facts supporting both sides, but was most intriguing to me was the video attached.  The video was a set of interviews of fans of NFL teams and they were asked questions on what they thought about the protests.  The results were astonishing out of twelve different fans that were interviewed ten had said that they didn’t like the protests.  They listed things from it being disrespectful to the protests taking the fun out of the game (Rohan, ESPN).  What was even more interesting was the racial gap between responses of the twelve that were interviewed the two that agreed whole heartedly with the protests were not Caucasian rather African American.  This relates back to the belief that they are not disrespecting the flag and rather fighting for police brutality and racial injustice to stop.   

Another thought-provoking thing about the protests was the loss of television viewers.  This year there was an average of sixteen and a half million views per game, but what you don’t know is that that number is down eight percent from last year when the views used to be nearly eighteen million people watching each regular season game and this can be directly attributed to the protests.  Mike Ozanian from Forbes says that this is due to the increase in protests that have been taking place in the NFL.  These protests began with Colin Kaepernick kneeling and the rest of the NFL continuing to participate this season.  “The millions of fewer views can be directly attributed to the protests since the views started declining in 2016, the year the protesting started” (Ozanian).  Mollie Hemingway from the federalist wrote about five problems with the National Anthem Protest in the NFL the number one thing she pointed out that disgruntled fans have noticed is the vague and unclear protests goals.  If the NFL players believe that they are protesting racial injustice and police brutality rather than protesting against the country than what does kneeling show.  How does kneeling to the National Anthem show police brutality and racial injustice and not express flat out disrespect to the United States as a country.  Hemingway pointed out that the players are only protesting the National Anthem.  There are a handful of games each year that are played on foreign soil and a couple weeks ago there was a game in London where the players kneeled and protested the National Anthem, yet when the song “ God Save the Queen” was played the players rose to their feet and showed respect (Hemingway). This is saddening for this country that you can go to a foreign country and show them more respect than your own.  

There have been other players in the NFL that have spoken up against players protesting such as Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady and more that have weighed in on the National Anthem Protests (Kelley).  Kelley strategically thought about putting Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady in his title because they are two of the top players in today’s game.  Both of these all-star players whom the fans have a lot of respect and admiration for both had similar views on the protests.  They both thought that they were not planning on protesting but that they would support whatever teammates they had that wanted to protest (Kelley).  After reading this I further understood what it was like for athletes who were not protesting, but were around people who were protesting and what they thought about the protests.  Another player who disagrees with the protests is Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints.  Brees was one of the first and few NFL players that on his own came out about his feelings on the protests and was one of the only ones who showed pure hate.  He hated the idea that players were disrespecting something so sacred as the flag of the United States (Tripplett).  Brees said that he “disagrees wholeheartedly aginst the protests” and thought of it as “an oxymoron that you're sitting down, disrespecting that flag that has given you the freedom to speak out,".  This was dating back to two thousand sixteen when Colin Kaepernick had first started to protests.  “Brees came from a military background where both of his grandfathers had served in World War II” (Tripplett).  This can be seen as a big reason why he is not fond of the protests.  One thing that you might not have thought of if you ever look on social media is what I found out from Samantha Raphelson from NPR.  Raphelson found out that more and more Americans are siding with President Donald Trump and his stance on the National Anthem protests by the players in the NFL.  Based on a study,  “Among the 400 voters participating in a study she began last December, more than 40 percent supported the president on the NFL protests” (Raphelson). Trump believes Trumps views on the protests have certainly resonated with a lot of Americans, especially veterans and people with family in the military.   These protests have taken a toll on a variety of people that consume sports, but not all sports have this problem.

There have been some sports leagues that have strayed away from the National Anthem protests such as NASCAR and Soccer.  Throughout this paper I have stated several times that the NFL is not the only sports league that has done this there have been MLB players, college players, and most importantly NBA players.  The NBA is the second biggest sport and league in the world behind the NFL and it fits the criteria and has the potential to have near the same affect as the NFL if they were to protest.  So far there have been minute protest going on in the NBA and Corey Kelly is studying the NBA’s reaction to the National Anthem protests throughout sports.  Kelly looks at how protests in the NFL have changed the way basketball players in the NBA are treating the National Anthem.  NBA players have been peaceful in terms of protests in a league that is filled with predominantly African Americans, with the most ‘disrespectful’ protest being the linking of arms.  Along with the linking of arms NBA players also have worn shirts in warmups that have sayings and slogans on them that support the Black Lives Matter movement, for example back in 2014 LeBron James, the number one basketball player on the planet, wore a shirt that said I can’t breathe, the last words of Eric Garner before he was killed by the police in an act of police brutality.  It seems like the athletes that are protesting the national anthem should take a page out of the NBA’s book on how to protest.  

Despite what side fans stand for, National Anthem protests have taken the country by storm, forcing the mass population to discuss racial injustice.  I have witnessed protests at NFL games, along with fans at Buffalo Wild Wings that were kneeling while the National Anthem was being played over the TV before a game, and these are two of many examples of how the United States is attempting to change. Within the last year and a half, the NFL as a brand has been tarnished, and change in police brutality and racial injustice is at a slow pace. Colin Kaepernick, the athlete who began the trend, is still not back on the field. Despite his talented quarterback skills and even his appearance in the Superbowl, he cannot find his way onto an NFL roster. With there being only ninety six quarterbacks in the NFL, it is not hard to believe that his absence is due to his protesting.  It is clear that each citizen’s stance on the issue is directly related to his or her race and background. The majority of  people who agree that the protests aren’t being disrespectful tend to be African American, and on the other hand, the people who tend to see the protests as being disrespectful are of other ethnicities.  That is not to say that an African American cannot view it as disrespectful or a Caucasian can see it as not being disrespectful to the flag.  It goes both ways, but I would be lying if I told you there was not a racial discrepancy in these protests. If your main goal is to demonstrate racial unity and fight against police brutality, then link arms and unite with different races like Chris Long and Malcolm Jennings or stand arm and arm with cops, but do not kneel and disrespect our country.
