NFL ratings fall as fans make clear: Quit the politics

OPINION:

So NFL players have a right to kneel during the national anthem — true. But NFL fans have a right to buy or not buy tickets, and watch or not watch games.

And it’s the latter that’s speaking loudly now. Soon enough, fans — not spoiled players — will win this political brouhaha. It’s only a matter of time.

“Through three weeks, viewership for national telecasts of NFL games is down 11 percent this season compared to 2016, the Nielsen company said,” The Associated Press reported.

Eleven percent. That’s pretty sizable. By the eyeballs, it goes like this: In the first three weeks of the 2016 season, the NFL averaged 17.63 million viewers. In the first three weeks of this season? That stat has dropped to 15.65 million viewers.

My oh my, could it be fans have been turning off their TVs during game time because they’re sick and tired of the political on-field protests?

The timing of the turn-offs is most curious, given angry fans — from President Donald Trump to Fox News’ Sean Hannity — have called for boycotts until the NFL gets its politicizing players in line. Coincidental, it’s not.

Note to NFL: It’s not that players don’t have a right to free speech and free expression. It’s that fans do as well — and fans don’t particularly like entitled, coddled and well-paid elitist athletes thumbing their noses at the national anthem, disdaining the very America that provided them with their fame.

The national anthem knows no skin color.

So let’s see what next week’s ratings bring. Chances are, the loss of viewership is going to be even greater. And that means: The fans’ fight is nearly won. Why?

NFL players seem to be gearing for more political displays, not less. Look for viewers to flip the off switch on games — look for sponsors and advertisers to be increasingly pressured to take a public side. Money, in the end, will dictate the future of on-field player protests. Athletes may be rich, but fans are many, and soon enough angry fans are going to turn their anger on those companies that waffle on the anthem. When that happens, it’ll be game over for on-field political protests.