NFL Fans Tuned Out of Games Last Year

Chris0nllyn

Chris0nllyn

Well-Known Member
Toxick said:
Kinda, you did, yeah.

You may not have used the phrase "trampled rights", but you appear to be arguing that spouting out your political views during work is every American's God Given Right, regardless of what your employer has to say about it, and that any retribution or retaliation or consequences are an infringement upon that right.

If that's not what you're saying then perhaps you should rethink your conversational strategy - because that's what I'm getting out of your half of the conversation. And I'm normally as liberty-minded as you are, and I agree with you on most things.
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What I've been saying is that he had the right to kneel. There's nothing in the rules saying he can't.

The team has every right to fire him, had he broken some rules. His employer obviously felt that he did not.

Gilligan said:
I would never claim that. But I would fire you immediately if your exercise of was disruptive, disrespectful, or...quite simply only because it pissed me off..and I CAN do that. All day..any day. ;-)
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You sure can.

Then again, you aren't in any sort of capacity as Kaepernick's boss.

PsyOps said:
You of all people don't know the 1st doesn't apply to private companies. The NFL is a private company. They can shut you up anytime they want. And when it starts affecting their bottom line, they should have. Otherwise, I don't give a hoot what Kap does.
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People still have a right to free speech and in the contract he signed, nothing stated he couldn't do what he did, which is why he wasn't fired.

The NFL had been losing viewers for some time and it certainly wasn't due to Kaepernick.

Bird Dog said:
That's what the OP is about. Letting NFL #######s express their "rights" the customers/fans are tuning out. The NFL is a business not a political forum and if you owned a business and some of your employees outspoken political views were costing you customers you'd fire them in a nano second.
.....but it takes balls, not safe spaces to do that.

BTW you are about as much a Libertarian as I'm a Socialist.
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But the NFL and his bosses didn't fire him because the 3 to 5 people who stopped watching football because some kid who doesn't vote kneeled during the anthem didn't affect their bottom line. Their ####ty commissioner and ####ty weekly lineups do that enough.

BTW my feelings are hurt.

PsyOps said:
So, how do you feel about Walmart telling their employees they can't say Merry Christmas to customers?
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Be my guest. They are a private company. I think it's stupid, but I don't own Wal-Mart.

It's a contract between Wal-Mart and their employers. Just like the NFL and Kaepernick.




This is more akin to an employee wishing someone Merry Christmas, it going viral on Facebook or other social media in a bad way, and Wal-Mart saying "too bad, we aren't firing the employee"









I think we should go on for 15 pages of hypotheticals and assumptions made by people who have no ####ing clue who I am.
 
PeoplesElbow

PeoplesElbow

Well-Known Member
Its all the ####ing commercials, touchdown commercial, extra point commercial, kickoff commercial....

That and all the mucking with the rules to make the game come down to the wire has made the game less interesting, college football is so much better.

I also think some games are fixed for the express purpose of generating more money, not so much to fix the final outcome but to keep it close to keep people tuned in.
 
PsyOps

PsyOps

Pixelated
Chris0nllyn said:
Be my guest. They are a private company. I think it's stupid, but I don't own Wal-Mart.

It's a contract between Wal-Mart and their employers. Just like the NFL and Kaepernick.

This is more akin to an employee wishing someone Merry Christmas, it going viral on Facebook or other social media in a bad way, and Wal-Mart saying "too bad, we aren't firing the employee"

I think we should go on for 15 pages of hypotheticals and assumptions made by people who have no ####ing clue who I am.
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There's no hypothetical here. Walmart, along with a lot of other companies, did do this - they forbade their employees from wishing customers a Merry Christmas. But you seem to be flipping here. You're now admitting a private company can limit your free speech rights ("It's a contract between Wal-Mart and their employers. Just like the NFL and Kaepernick").

You do realize the 1st amendment is a limitation on government's power to screw around with our rights, not the private sector?
 
Gilligan

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
Chris0nllyn said:
You sure can.

Then again, you aren't in any sort of capacity as Kaepernick's boss.
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That was not the point. The point was simply that nothing in anyone's First Amendment rights protects them from being summarily fired if the exercise thereof pisses off the boss/owner. Run your mouth the wrong way...hit the street.

That was the point.
 
Chris0nllyn

Chris0nllyn

Well-Known Member
PsyOps said:
There's no hypothetical here. Walmart, along with a lot of other companies, did do this - they forbade their employees from wishing customers a Merry Christmas. But you seem to be flipping here. You're now admitting a private company can limit your free speech rights ("It's a contract between Wal-Mart and their employers. Just like the NFL and Kaepernick").

You do realize the 1st amendment is a limitation on government's power to screw around with our rights, not the private sector?
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It is a hypothetical because we're discussing this case. The NFL didn't tell him not to. The NFL didn't have any rules stipulating kneeling or conduct during the anthem. So, not quite the same thing.

I said from the beginning that companies have that right.

There's been 5 pages of bitching about how Kaepernick should have been fired for this or that, telling me I'm not a Libertarian, that I've never held a job, and other dumb ####. If more than a small handful of posters on this fourm were a bit more capable of maintaining a respectful and open dialog while also acknowledging differing viewpoints, maybe that wouldn't have happened.

And yes, I understand that. Hence my position in the "bake the cake" thread that business owners should be free to discriminate simply because they are private. Let the market decide.

Gilligan said:
That was not the point. The point was simply that nothing in anyone's First Amendment rights protects them from being summarily fired if the exercise thereof pisses off the boss/owner. Run your mouth the wrong way...hit the street.

That was the point.
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And my point was that the bosses didn't do this because he did nothing wrong. Kneeling for the anthem shouldn't be an offense needing termination, but I won't argue companies don't have that right. As of that period in time, the NFL had no rules against the very thing we've spent 5 pages arguing should have happened.
 
PsyOps

PsyOps

Pixelated
Chris0nllyn said:
It is a hypothetical because we're discussing this case. The NFL didn't tell him not to. The NFL didn't have any rules stipulating kneeling or conduct during the anthem. So, not quite the same thing.
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Yes, we know the NFL didn't tell Kaepernick to stop the protest; that was the problem. And that's why the NFL is in this predicament of lower viewership.

And Walmart had no rule about saying Merry Christmas until they made one. All Goodell had to do was tell him and the others to knock it off or start facing massive fines. Rule made. It's just that easy.
 
PsyOps

PsyOps

Pixelated
Chris0nllyn said:
There's been 5 pages of bitching about how Kaepernick should have been fired for this or that, telling me I'm not a Libertarian, that I've never held a job, and other dumb ####. If more than a small handful of posters on this fourm were a bit more capable of maintaining a respectful and open dialog while also acknowledging differing viewpoints, maybe that wouldn't have happened.
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Well, that hasn't come from me. How I feel about Kaepernick's protests has nothing to do with my point... if the NFL was losing viewers over this, they should have addressed it. But instead, they played the political correctness game because they feared the backlash from that rather than the backlash of losing viewers. This was poorly devised business decision on the part of the NFL. If they want to lose money, across the entire NFL, over a very few selfish, self-centered, whiny players then I think that's just stupid.

But you started off going into 1st amendment rights and all that nonsense; the 1st does not come into play here.
 
Chris0nllyn

Chris0nllyn

Well-Known Member
PsyOps said:
Yes, we know the NFL didn't tell Kaepernick to stop the protest; that was the problem. And that's why the NFL is in this predicament of lower viewership.

And Walmart had no rule about saying Merry Christmas until they made one. All Goodell had to do was tell him and the others to knock it off or start facing massive fines. Rule made. It's just that easy.
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It wasn't a problem for them and viewership didn't drop off because of it. At least not by any measurable amount. The NFL has no problem silencing players or making sure players don't act in an indivudualistic (is that a word?) manor so I think if they had a problem with it, they would have told him to shut it. It could be them pandering, or it could be simply hoping he'd end his shtick and it'd go away. Who knows.
 
Rommey

Rommey

Well-Known Member
Chris0nllyn said:
So now we've gone from kneeling to "doing anything you damn well please"? C'mon. Propping up strawmen and wild comparisons only lessens the argument.
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Kaepernick was doing as he damned well pleased by kneeling. Exercising your rights have limits.

The thing is, you aren't the coach. You aren't the GM. You aren't in any position to do anything about Kapernick other than not watch their games or not buy his merchandise. That's how a free marklet system works in a country where people have freedoms. I don't have to like what someone says or does. When I don't like it, I don't encourage it by feeding ratings or buying merchandise.
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I never claimed to be either the coach or GM, thus the "If I were..." part of my statement. I never said I had the ability to make Kaepernick, the 49ers, or the NFL do anything. It doesn't prevent me from opining about the situation and interjecting a hypothetical into the discussion.

So tell me, at your place of employment, are you allowed to do things that offend others or is disrespectful to others, all in the name of free speech?

Your last statement sums it up. The people in charge of making the decisions for the 49ers apparently value freedom of speech more than the handfull of "freedom lovers" here in little ole' southern mer'land.
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...and those same people are so proud of that expression of freedom that they immediately signed him to a long term contract. If those in charge in SF had any desire to back him up, they are sure showing a funny way of expressing it.
 
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Blister

Blister

Active Member
None of any of the points brought up in this thread will matter in a few years. Football will cease to exist in any recognizable form when the lawsuits work their way through the court system. The NFL has deep pockets, but when they start getting judgements against colleges, high schools , and Pop Warner leagues, how long will the game survive.

https://www.si.com/nfl/2016/09/01/pop-warner-youth-football-lawsuit-concussions-cte

http://www.concussioninjuryattorneys.com/#~j7G0a6

http://www.raiznerlaw.com/ncaa-class-action-lawsuit-concussions/

http://triblive.com/local/allegheny/12037750-74/settlement-players-nfl
 
Gilligan

Gilligan

#*! boat!
PREMO Member
Chris0nllyn said:
I think we should go on for 15 pages of hypotheticals and assumptions made by people who have no ####ing clue who I am.
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Your extreme immaturity has been on display here long enough, and to a great enough extent that, yes..you are quite easy to peg, child.
 
BOP

BOP

Well-Known Member
Chris0nllyn said:
Yea, letting Kapernick exercise his First Amendment right, the horror!
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No matter how many times people explain this to you, you never get tired of being wrong.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
 
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