The NFL is paying the price for tolerating the displays of anti-Americanism during the national anthem.
Ratings are down and the stadiums are empty.
But one jaw dropping announcement revealed that the protests are hurting the league in the worst way anyone can imagine.
Linda Yaccarino – the head of advertising and client sales partnerships at NBC Universal, which televises Sunday Night Football – revealed that a host of sponsors threatened to pull their ads over the NFL national anthem protests.
Advertisers were furious about being associated with a league that openly brags about being united with players who hate the flag and spit on the military.
And they have been demanding networks stop showing the demonstrations out of fear it will anger their customers.
Breitbart reports:
“Last week, Papa John’s made quite the splash by publicly ripping NFL leadership and threatening to end their sponsorship of the league, over how Commissioner Goodell has mishandled that national anthem protests.
This week, according to an executive at NBC, we learn that Papa John’s isn’t alone and that other NFL advertisers have threatened to withdraw their business over the anthem protests as well.
Linda Yaccarino, chairman of advertising sales and client partnerships at NBC Universal, spoke recently at an industry chat hosted by AdAge. During the discussion, she said that while no sponsors have actually followed through and pulled their advertising from the NFL, yet, several have threatened to do so.
According to AdAge via Awful Announcing, “Yaccarino … said that none of NBCUniversal’s NFL advertisers have pulled out of NBC’s Sunday Night Football or Thursday Night Football games. However, a “list of advertisers have made themselves very clear: if you continue covering the political coverage of the issue, we will not be part of the NFL,” she said. “Because think about it: they have half the country that is cheering about that, and they have half the country that is emailing them, saying, don’t do that. So that’s a real thing.”
Yaccarino was also one of the few individuals connected with the NFL willing to go on the record and admit the America hating-players and their protests were affecting the ratings.
Breitbart also reports:
“Yaccarino continued to say that she believes the protests have impacted NFL ratings: “She noted that prior to the controversy, which started last season when then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began to kneel during the national anthem, “most” NFL games didn’t broadcast the anthem, aside from big games like the Super Bowl. “The story has morphed dramatically, from social injustice to patriotism,” said Yaccarino. “While I don’t think there’s any way you could ever really prove it, I do think it has impacted the ratings.”
NFL ratings are down nearly 19 percent from 2015 – the last year all players stood for the national anthem.
The league is searching for a way out of the disaster, but the players’ proposed solutions – a team signing Colin Kaepernick or the league partnering with them on causes supported by the pro-cop killer Black Lives Matter movement – represent a cure that’s even worse than the disease.
We will keep you up to date on any new developments in this story.
