Roger Goodell Expands NFL Social Justice Messaging But Won’t Veto Anthem Protests

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell doesn’t seem concerned with further alienating conservative football fans as the league rolled out its social justice messaging plan for end zones on a conference call earlier this week.

In fact, Goodell himself said he’s not sweating the ratings impact in a later CNBC interview, just before dodging a direct question about the NFL’s stance on national anthem protests this season.

Roger Goodell Drops NFL’s Latest Social Justice Plan

According to ProFootballTalk, Goodell announced the NFL’s social justice messaging initiative during a Tuesday conference call.

The league will paint the phrases “end racism” and “it takes all of us” in the end zones for each NFL game in the 2020 season.

“The NFL stands with the black community, the players, clubs and fans confronting systemic racism,” he said. “We will not relent in our work.”

Of course, this shouldn’t surprise anyone given Goodell’s recent backtracking and groveling.

Related: NFL Head Roger Goodell Grovels To Kaepernick Again – ‘I Wish We Had Listened Earlier’

What About NFL Ratings?

Then on Wednesday, during an interview with CNBC, Goodell claimed not to be worried about the potential negative impact of these social justice initiatives on NFL ratings.

“Our ratings have really been the envy of every entertainment and sports property,” Goodell said. “We have the broadest audience, we have the best partners in all of television and media. We feel that ratings always go up and down for a variety of reasons.”

The NFL commissioner then deflected when he was asked about the national anthem protests that have offended countless patriotic football fans who can’t stand to watch players taking a knee during the song. 

“I wonder if you would agree that your own stance as it pertains to social justice has evolved since Kaepernick first took that knee. Certainly your recent interviews suggest that,” host Carl Quintanilla told Goodell.

“I think some of our viewers want to know whether players will be on the field for the anthem, and whether you as a league and the ownership are willing to withstand any pushback if in fact we do see players take knees.”

The CNBC’s question was pretty direct – what is the NFL’s stance on anthem protests? 

Roger Goodell Deflects About Anthem

That put Goodell in the hot seat. Which clearly didn’t sit well with the NFL commish.

“I would tell you that all of us, hopefully, are evolving and learning—we should be—and we all should realize that we have to do more,” Goodell replied.

“I’m proud of what our league has done. I said it several months ago that we should’ve listened to our players earlier and been able to understand the things that were going on in our communities. We’re seeing that play out on television sets across the country. They have been happening in our communities for years—decades—and we have to end it.”

Way to evade a direct question, Goodell. Clearly he didn’t want to talk anthem policy and so he punted.

But here’s what Goodell fails to understand. The vast majority of fans feel that politics have no place in football.

We watch our pro sports to escape from our daily life. The last thing we want is for our favorite sport to drag us back down into the rabbit hole of politics and the evils of the world.

Yet now, fans can’t watch a football game without being lectured about social justice and radical left-wing ideologies.

Roger Goodell may claim not to care about NFL ratings now, but we’ll see if he sings a different tune once they really start to deteriorate.

The NFL has already alienated millions of conservative football fans. And many say they will never be coming back to the sport. 

Read next: NFL Legend Mike Ditka: ‘If You Can’t Respect Our National Anthem, Get The H*LL Out Of The Country’