Last week, ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro made it known that his network would not be airing the playing of the national anthem during Monday Night Football. Less than a week later, we find out that ESPN will have company with their anthem blackout.
USA Today’s Tom Schad recently questioned representatives from the NFL’s other broadcast partners, to find out their plans for how to handle the anthem controversy. What he found, is that ESPN isn’t the only NFL broadcast partner sensitive to maintaining their relationship with a league that is looking for a way out of a controversy that’s entering its third season.
According to Awful Announcing:
A CBS Sports spokesperson said that they do not plan to televise the playing of the anthem. That lines up with previous years when they didn’t broadcast it either, instead usually sending cameras to the home studio or cutting to commercial. “Consistent with our past practices, we do not plan to show the anthem live. We will be prepared to cover any story that is newsworthy as it develops.” A person familiar with Fox Sports’ plans said the network only plans to show the anthem when the situation calls for it, such as on Veterans Day or Thanksgiving. They also apparently plan on showing it during the playoffs. An NBC Sports spokesperson said that they have yet to determine the strategy for their 19 broadcasts this season. Of course, none of this is going to satisfy the many people who will want to see documented proof of players who stood, knelt, or did something else altogether during the national anthem.
The NFL suspended the new anthem policy they adopted in May — which called for players on the field to stand and show respect during the playing of the anthem — in favor of finding a new rule through a joint compromise with the NFL Players Association. However, despite over a month of negotiations, no joint policy has been produced.
It’s entirely possible, that the NFL has done an end-around the joint negotiations by approaching network executives about stopping the broadcasting of the anthem, in hopes that the controversy will simply die out. Clearly, as the biggest sport in the land, the NFL is a tremendously valuable partner to networks like CBS and ESPN. Which makes maintaining that relationship extremely important.
Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter @themightygwinn
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