Our men in stripes are back on Cincinnati’s hot, humid riverfront, preparing for another demanding NFL season. But Paul Brown Stadium (PBS) could be an unwelcoming, “no man’s land” as players, politicians and fans dig into opposing culture war trenches.
Nationally, the NFL has suffered an unprecedented decline in popularity. TV ratings for regular season games are down a whopping 17 percent since 2015. Local attendance sags. The Bengals sold out 57 games in a row through November 2010. Now sellouts are rare, even for that annual game when Steelers fans gobble up otherwise empty seats.
Why the sudden decline for the cultural juggernaut that once brought red and blue America together?
More: Opinion: NFL anthem policy is a ‘Fail Mary’
Look to the man in the White House, a former owner of the USFL’s New Jersey Generals, a team that lasted about as long as a “Trump steak” in an unplugged freezer. Trump seems never to have gotten over his 2014 rejection by NFL owners of his bid for the Buffalo Bills.
His revenge? Turning the NFL into another divisive culture war wedge issue.
The president’s anti-NFL campaign began during his 2016 campaign, after our own Vontaze Burfict was flagged for a concussion-inducing hit on Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown. The penalty prolonged the Bengals’ playoff victory drought and caught Trump’s ire.
“Football has become soft like our country has become soft,” Trump railed at a Reno rally. “The outcome of games have been changed by what used to be phenomenal, phenomenal stuff.”
Yep, nothing more “phenomenal” than seeing a player knocked senseless now that we know the debilitating effects of multiple concussions.
After Donald Trump said NFL players should be fired for kneeling during the national anthem, NFL players, owners and coaches condemned Trump’s comments.
USA TODAY Sports
Once elected, Trump gleefully turned the NFL into a racial wedge issue, one tweet at a time. African-American players taking a knee to protest police shootings were “SOB’s” who should be “fired,” or even “deported.” The Super Bowl champs were disinvited from the traditional White House celebration, even though no Philadelphia Eagles player actually had taken a knee. Never mind. Fox News broadcast photos of black Eagles players kneeling together in pre-game prayer, before the anthem. Henceforth, black NFL players better pray standing to avoid a Fox smear.
NFL owners capitulated to Trump with new rules calling for punishment of “un-American” anthem kneelers. But now Trump is attacking the NFL’s “$40 million commissioner,” Roger Goodell, for even discussing its new anthem rules with the players’ union.
Trump’s view of the NFL aligns with his “MAGA” nostalgia for an earlier, ethnically purer day. The league, like America, was last “great” in those good old days when most players looked like him.
Trump grew up a New York Giants fan. So did I. In the Giants 1950-60s glory days, the star players I watched with my dad on our black-and-white Zenith, were white guys: Y.A. Tittle, Frank Gifford, Pat Summerall, Joe Morrison, Andy Robustelli. Players were smaller, slower, less athletic. It’s hard to imagine those Giants “legends” cutting it in today’s league.
Sadly, Trump’s jihad on the NFL has worked. A recent YouGov poll shows that 58 percent of GOP voters now view the NFL unfavorably. Democrats are ambivalent, with just 44 percent viewing the NFL favorably, and 39 percent unfavorable.
Of course, “blue” voters have our own bones to pick with the NFL, starting with sweetheart stadium deals. The Bengals stadium lease has been labeled “the worst ever” by the Wall Street Journal and mocked by HBO’s John Oliver. Local taxpayers will shell out more than a billion dollars by the time the Bengals lease expires in 2026. We may be paying off that debt even if (or after) the Bengals move onto London, Portland or San Antonio.
As a season ticket holder for many years, I benefited from that taxpayers’ subsidy. Thanks, fellow taxpayers! But would this year’s sales tax increase be necessary without the county’s ongoing interest payments on PBS, and the expected $2.5 million tab for “game-day expenses” through 2026?
Without the NFL culture war, Bengals fans would be asking questions like these as a new season kicks off:
- Will 2017 first round pick John Ross stick to his pass routes?
- Will Burfict avoid more suspensions?
- Will oft-injured Trump-backer Tyler Eifert continue to be as allergic to the playing field as “Private Bone Spurs” was to Vietnam?
- And did pre-Marvin Bengals players actually get used jock straps?
Instead, the more pertinent question in this divisive political climate may be whether anyone, red or blue, will fill those seats at PBS.
Clifton resident Don Mooney is a retired labor attorney and a member of The Enquirer’s Board of Contributors.
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