The NFL has decided to cancel its final Sunday Night Football game of the season.
While New Year’s Eve celebrations may cause Americans to not pay attention to the TV, it seems pretty clear that conservatives just got the last laugh.
From CNN:
The NFL has canceled the final Sunday night football game of the season. Don’t worry, no one was going to watch anyway.
Next Sunday’s game had two disadvantages: The games all had a likelihood of being dull by the time Sunday night rolled around. And this coming Sunday is New Year’s Eve, a day when historically few Americans watch television.
The last time the NFL held a Sunday night football game on New Year’s Eve was in 2006, when the Chicago Bears hosted the Green Bay Packers. It was expected to be quarterback Brett Favre’s last game with the Packers (and widely expected to be his last game ever). Still, only 13.4 million people watched that game, about a quarter fewer than the average Sunday Night Football game that season.
Since the last Sunday night football game also happens to be the final game of the season, the NFL tries to schedule a game that will definitely have playoff implications for one or both of the teams playing. (A team that already made the playoffs might sit their starters, leading to an exceptionally boring game.)
As if the NFL hasn’t already turned off millions of fans, they’re intent on going forward with a ‘social justice’ push.
The league will now co-host a social justice workshop for college athletes.
From Daily Wire:
The “Advocacy in Sport” workshop, presented by the NFL in concert with Morehouse College, will teach student athletes “how to develop and implement effective advocacy platforms that positively impact society,” according to Campus Reform.
The NFL even issued a press release trumpeting the new effort. “This historic workshop is aimed at training the next generation of athletes who wish to use sport as a powerful platform for advocacy,” the statement read. “Our partnership is designed to equip athletes as influencers and community leaders with the mechanics to develop their advocacy platform.”
More from Campus Reform:
The workshop comes on the heel of the NFL’s recent pledge to donate $89 million dollars to social justice causes over the next seven years, a commitment that notably came in light of the protests against racial injustice seen by NFL players like Colin Kaepernick and others.
“This historic workshop is aimed at training the next generation of athletes who wish to use sport as a powerful platform for advocacy,” said Troy Vincent, the Executive Vice President of Football Operations at the NFL, in the NFL press release.
“Our partnership is designed to equip athletes as influencers and community leaders with the mechanics to develop their advocacy platform,” Vincent added.
More about that $89 million commitment, per ESPN:
The NFL and a group of players reached an agreement in principle late Wednesday night to partner on a plan to address social justice issues considered important to African-American communities, sources told ESPN.
The unprecedented agreement calls for the league to contribute $89 million over seven years to projects dealing with criminal justice reform, law enforcement/community relations and education.
During a conference call Wednesday night, Malcolm Jenkins and Anquan Boldin, who lead roughly 40 players who have negotiated with the league office about demonstrations during the national anthem, guided the group through the highlights of the package, which represents the NFL’s largest contribution to a social issue, surpassing that of Salute to Service or Breast Cancer Awareness/Crucial Catch.
Continued:
The partnership came a day after some players broke away from the Players Coalition because of their dissatisfaction with how Jenkins and Boldin have handled negotiations. Commissioner Roger Goodell, believing that an agreement was at hand, was furious when ESPN reported that players were breaking off, according to one source. But during an afternoon call, Jenkins asked that the commissioner and the owners continue to stand with the players and allow them to do important work in the community.
The agreement does not include language calling for players to end protests during the national anthem in exchange for funds; there’s no implicit quid pro quo. But the NFL hopes this effort will effectively end the peaceful yet controversial movement that former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick started in 2016, when he refused to stand for the anthem.
[Note: This post was written by John S. Roberts]
