This needs to be said!

4 Scale · 09-20-2017, 11:00 PM

To understand why the NFL allows these protests, assume that the NFL always acts in its best interests. The reasons then emerge.

As anyone from San Diego can tell you, the NFL runs an extortion racket to get its stadiums publicly financed by threatening to move. It generally works, but the stadiums are then arguably single-use quasi-public structures. If the NFL prohibits protests it runs the risk of a 1st Amendment fight (free speech on public property) and reminding everyone, including Congress and the anti-trust division of the DOJ that the NFL business model when boiled down is Corporate Welfare.

Also, prohibiting protests on this issue could antagonize a majority of the league's players.

As always, the NFL has made a shrewd calculation and decided on a course of maximum benefit to itself - pretending reverence for the 1st. That some Americans are genuinely angry that the protests are allowed it views as the least adverse of several possible bad outcomes.

09-20-2017, 11:00 PM	#6
4 Scale User Join Date: Nov 2014 Posts: 544 Thanks: 194 Thanked 490 Times in 251 Posts	To understand why the NFL allows these protests, assume that the NFL always acts in its best interests. The reasons then emerge. As anyone from San Diego can tell you, the NFL runs an extortion racket to get its stadiums publicly financed by threatening to move. It generally works, but the stadiums are then arguably single-use quasi-public structures. If the NFL prohibits protests it runs the risk of a 1st Amendment fight (free speech on public property) and reminding everyone, including Congress and the anti-trust division of the DOJ that the NFL business model when boiled down is Corporate Welfare. Also, prohibiting protests on this issue could antagonize a majority of the league's players. As always, the NFL has made a shrewd calculation and decided on a course of maximum benefit to itself - pretending reverence for the 1st. That some Americans are genuinely angry that the protests are allowed it views as the least adverse of several possible bad outcomes.