Radio hosts Joe Madison and Stephen A. Smith, think that QB/activist Colin Kaepernick remains unsigned because he hurts ticket sales.
Madison, a host on SiriusXM’s Urban View Channel, asked ESPN’s Smith about why Kaepernick, who started the anthem-kneeling movement in 2016, can’t get a job.
Madison said to Smith to start the interview, “If Kaepernick took a knee and folks still bought tickets and the stadiums still sold out, he’d play.
“Joe, I couldn’t put it any better myself. If this man had had no effect on their bottom line in their eyes, this would not be an issue. He would be playing.”
Two important aspects of NFL’s financial bottom line are TV ratings and ticket sales, and the anthem protest movement have hurt the league in these areas.
“There’s something that’s tricky in all this,” Smith told Madison. “66% of the American population is white. Where are you getting most of your money from if you are the National Football League? Sure you have support from the black community, the Latino community, etc. but, for the most part you’re getting it from a lot of white folks here. Just a numbers game here. So, ultimately you put them in the position where they have to make a choice based on numbers. Now if you had white folks that stood up in support of Colin Kaepernick that would be a different ballgame.”
Clearly there are white people who support Kaepernick, and you can find them all over social media.
But there are others who don’t support him and have made their voices heard by watching the NFL less on TV and attending fewer games.
However, Madison pointed out boycotts work both ways, and some of his callers are staying away from the NFL over the league shunning Kaepernick.
“Now, here’s the other side of that,” Madison said. “If this boycott all my callers are pushing – even though they’re not boycotting – most of them. If their boycott was working, and they started losing big time money, Kaepernick would play.
“There’s 2 bottom lines,” Smith responded. “The primary bottom line is what we’re talking about… dollars and cents. The secondary bottom line is something that only black folks can speak to.
“You do have folks in corporate America that happen to be white that they’re primary objective outside of the bottom line is to exercise control, more so than what’s right or wrong. So if you have an African American that is taking a position and they believe he’s galvanized folks in a way that he is empowered they are more interested in curtailing that power as opposed to exploiting his talents. And so, because of that, that’s problematic in and of itself.
“So, with Colin Kaerpenick it’s two-fold: One is the bottom line. The other is, we are not going to sit here and allow this man to sit up there and exercise this level of control and influence where he’s impacting our bottom line.”
And the NFL’s bottom line is making money since they’re a business, and they don’t like factors standing in the way of that.
Follow Dan Leberfeld on Twitter @jetswhispers
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