President Donald Trump has lit the National Football League up several times this year.
He made it clear that he’s not a fan of several rule changes. He slammed this year’s Super Bowl halftime show, saying that it was “absolutely terrible, one of the worst, EVER! It makes no sense, is an affront to the Greatness of America, and doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence.” And on Sharyl Attkisson’s “Full Measure” show this Sunday, he called out the NFL’s policy of moving games behind paywalls: “They could be killing the golden goose… You have people that live for Sunday. They can’t think about anything else, and then all of a sudden they have to pay $1,000? It’s crazy.”
The president speaks for tens of millions of Americans who are equally fed up with the NFL these days, as it moves to take more games off broadcast while still pushing more woke politics on and off the field.
America’s sports fans reflect the broad diversity of this nation—rich and poor, rural and urban, Republican and Democrat. Yet the leagues that run the business of sports all too often are captured by the New York and Hollywood values that define our entertainment industries. The result is a disconnect that may have real consequences as the leagues now defend their profitable positions before an anti-woke Trump administration. The National Football League could be the first to face the music.
Example A of the out-of-touch attitude that permeates sports management is the NFL’s Super Bowl halftime show featuring Bad Bunny. In the year that America celebrates its 250th birthday, selecting a Spanish-language performer to sing was wildly off-key. And things got even worse when Bad Bunny laced his lyrics with drug-use and sexual references for a show that draws millions of underage eyeballs.
Bad Bunny’s performance drew a complaint to the Federal Communications Commission from U.S. Rep. Randy Fine, R-Fla., while his colleague, Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., called for a hearing by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The FCC and Congress are now turning their attention to sports broadcasting, with a particular focus on the migration of premium sports content behind streaming paywalls that are driving up costs for fans.
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As policymakers peel back the NFL’s approach to negotiating these distribution deals, they will find a league thoroughly committed to wokeism—Bad Bunny was symptomatic of a broader problem. As part of its embrace of “Black Lives Matter,” the NFL has painted its end zones with messages like “End Racism” and “Stop Hate.” These are part of a larger $250 million, 10-year campaign by the NFL “to combat systemic racism and support the battle against injustices faced by African Americans” launched in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
The NFL’s approach to affirmative action—with interview quotas for hiring and extra draft picks for making “the right” hires—has it in hot water with Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier. At the end of March, Uthmeier wrote Commissioner Roger Goodell about the tension between the NFL’s race-based hiring policies and Florida’s civil rights laws.
There’s also the lack of respect when the leagues enthusiastically embrace gay pride without regard for players or fans who hold traditional religious views on sexuality. The NFL sponsors a leaguewide Pride effort, while 29 of 30 major league baseball teams hold a Pride Night every June with rainbow jerseys, etc.
The NHL backed off its pride-jersey policy after a number of players publicly declined to suit up in them. And don’t forget the recent brouhaha when the NBA’s Chicago Bulls waived Jaden Ivey over the conflict between his faith and the team’s commitment to the LGBTQ+ cause.
This is the record as the leagues now come before the FCC, which has opened an inquiry looking at sports broadcasting in general and the movement of sports behind fan-unfriendly paywalls in particular. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the NFL in light of streaming shifts.
As the leagues engage these regulatory reviews, they should expect skepticism from Trump Administration agencies that share the president’s strong aversion to DEI, wokeism, and higher consumer prices. The leagues need to start putting fans first, both by making games widely available and making the left-wing politics much less pervasive.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.
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