DEREK HUNTER: The Slow Death Of The NFL?
Since I wasn’t a rabid fan the NFL won’t really notice that I’m gone. But I’m not alone. Through my radio show, social media, and life I have heard from scores of people who are diehard fans, and they’re done too.
More importantly for the NFL and the players, they’re beyond angry. Lifelong fans feel betrayed. Anger fades with time, but the sting of betrayal lingers.
This was a foreseeable eventuality, akin to being hit by a train because you were playing on the tracks and refused to move.
The damage to the NFL began when Commissioner Roger Goodell chose to side with left-wing activists over the game in the hope of placating them and absolving himself from his failures to properly address domestic violence by some players.
Activist groups were vocal critics of slaps on the wrists for players abusing their wives or girlfriends. But left-wing activist groups don’t stop, ever. Even when something is (eventually) made right and harsher penalties were handed out. Because they can fundraise off of it and, equally as important to them, they hate professional sports.
Activist liberals always have hated sports, even when they use it. They hate competition – championing ending scorekeeping in youth sports – because there are winners and losers, and they hate meritocracy. If professional sports is anything it is a meritocracy. Only the best survive, regardless of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and all the other boxes liberals have created to divide people.
Professional sports has no time for any of that; there’s too much money in winning. And professional sports is a business.
At least it used to be.
If the NFL does die, it will die two ways: “Gradually, then suddenly.”