Tag: Colin Kaepernick

The Story: In 2016, after high-profile shootings of two black men by police in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Charlotte, North Carolina, a quarterback for the San...

Ohio State defensive end Nick Bosa is expected to be one of the top picks in the upcoming NFL Draft and opened up about his politics in an in-depth interview published Wednesday. Bosa, who regularly tweeted about his support for President Trump and his disdain for jobless activist quarterback Colin Kaepernick, revealed to ESPN he deleted those tweets over fears he may not be fully embraced by the city of San Francisco should he get drafted to the 49ers at the end of the month. “I had to,” Bosa told ESPN. “There is a chance I might end up in San Francisco.” Screenshoted tweets showed Bosa calling Kaepernick, the former 49ers quarterback who claimed NFL owners were colluding to keep him out of the league because of his decision to kneel during the national anthem, a "clown." He also created a stir over his opinions on Beyonce’s music. The 49ers have the No. 2 pick in the draft and it’s unclear what the team will do with it. According to NBC Bay Area, draft experts believe Bosa could land with the Niners. Bosa played three seasons with Ohio State and collected 29 sacks in that time. He cut his season short last year after suffering an injury and deciding to focus on the draft.

Super Bowl season is like the holidays — a celebration shared by people more accustomed to arguing than sitting down together. Meanwhile, advertisers fret that running any ads at all could be read as a statement one way or the other. It’s a normal thing to want a break from arguing. It needed recruits, and it needed a compliant public. To sports fans. A Senate investigation revealed that the military dumped tens of millions of dollars into the NFL and other leagues for PR help. “Consider the display put on at Super Bowl 50,” recalls writer Stephen Beale for The American Conservative: “A flyover by the Blue Angels fighter jets, and 50 representatives of all military branches singing ‘America the Beautiful’ against a backdrop of a giant flag.” Some even speculate that the NFL’s national anthem rules were bought by that Pentagon money. Despite this thoroughly political staging, it was only Kaepernick and his supporters who were attacked for “bringing politics” into football. (In fact, it was veteran Nate Boyer who advised Kaepernick to take a knee in the first place.) That’s no comfort to the beleaguered football fan (or their friend who just watches for the commercials).

Today’s intersection of race, politics and sports harks back to the 1960’s. They could be setting themselves up for years of regret, knowing that when the times called for action they did nothing. Today’s NFL players have their reasons for engaging in the protests, or not. Those who are quietly sympathetic to the cause, but aren’t saying or doing anything about it, should take heed of Bob Cousy, a man from a different time and sport. But that’s what Cousy is doing. In answer to his conscience, Cousy wishes that, as team captain, he had privately pulled aside Russell during those seasons between 1957 and 1963 and said, “Russ, I’ve got your back.” He also wishes he had spoken out, even telling Boston’s white sportswriters, “I understand Russ’s feelings. When conscience comes into conflict with the wallet, conscience rarely wins – perhaps especially so in the NFL. San Francisco cornerback Richard Sherman, an African-American, says it “would mean a great deal” if more white players took part in the protests or spoke out in support of them. Sherman understands an NFL player’s need to protect his job: “This is your livelihood. At long last, Cousy had answered to his conscience.

Washington (CNN)Land O'Lakes and Purina, the two companies that dumped Iowa Rep. Steve King this week over his incendiary comments, learned what a growing number of corporate interests are discovering in a hyper-partisan America: It doesn't always pay to play in politics. On Twitter, Trump himself encouraged his supporters to "Buy L.L. "The environment today is hyper-polarized and really very toxic," said Bruce Freed, who runs the Center for Political Accountability, a nonprofit that promotes greater political transparency at publicly traded companies. "They'll move jobs or move dollar-wise in terms of their own spending" if they disagree with a company's politics. Officials with Intel, which announced over the weekend that it would no longer support King, declined to comment on the reasons behind the company's move. Political action committees associated with corporations long have donated to King, despite the immigration hard-liner's long history of racially and ethnically insensitive comments. In all, the Minnesota-based company has contributed $12,000 to King since Jan. 1, 2008, including $2,500 this year, according to the Center's data. Judd Legum, who writes the political newsletter Popular Information, said that endorsement sparked him to lead a social media campaign, urging companies to abandon King. As for Nike, the ad campaign demonstrates it knows its audience, despite the conservative backlash, Levick said. Nike is selling to millennials "who expect their companies to be socially involved," he said, not to "60-year-old guys like me who don't need to buy multiple pairs of shoes."

On Friday morning, Us Weekly, citing a single anonymous source, reported that the group’s invitation to front the annual football-adjacent extravaganza came after Rihanna had declined an offer of her own. Kaepernick is currently suing the league, alleging it has blacklisted him since he began protesting. (A rep for Rihanna did not immediately reply to a request for comment.) “The offer and exposure would have been great for Rihanna as she’s planning a new album and tour but she stuck to what’s right in her eyes,” this source said to Entertainment Tonight. What exactly is Rihanna turning down? (Some have reportedly paid themselves for the gig—or at least their labels have.) Those who would otherwise tune out football, tune in for a big, bright, shining spectacle. There are even all kinds of ways for pop stars to use the Super Bowl halftime show. Kaepernick’s protests began in earnest that year, just as Donald Trump’s presidential viability went from surreal political dream to surreal political matter of fact. At this point, the boldest political move Rihanna could make is the one she reportedly chose to.

Businesses that include both publicly traded and private companies, and small-business owners, seem to have decided to make themselves relevant in the political arena. Other examples include Kellogg’s decision to pull some advertisements from Breitbart.com, which then called for a boycott of the company’s products. And small-business owners and corporate managers are people, too, with their own political party preferences. Corporations and small business owners can design a marketing strategy (as Nike seems to have done) that will attract one group and hope that the fallout from the other group will not impact sales. Is this the best strategy for the owners of public and private firms? Public firm managers are agents of the owners and are persuaded by positive or negative incentives to take on projects that are in the best interests of companies’ common shareholders. The danger is that with political activism on the part of firms, they can alienate a group of individuals who may also be its customers. It is true that Nike’s revenues increased after the ad, but many people burned Nike products and one mayor banned the sale of Nike products before retracting it. In the middle of this political hurricane, here then is a smart strategy for all firms, whether they are public, private or small businesses: Keep out of politics when it involves the welfare of its stakeholders, be it common stock holders, private firm or small-business owners. To maximize owners’ wealth, firms and small business owners need to attract customers from all parts of the political spectrum.

Opinion Modal Trigger As a kid growing up in Nashville, I had three sports posters on my bedroom wall: Michael Jordan in mid-flight dunking from the free-throw line in the 1988 slam-dunk contest, a black-and-white photo of Bo Jackson posing with shoulder pads and a baseball bat across his shoulders, and Eric Davis at bat in his Cincinnati Reds uniform. The 1980s, the 1990s, the 2000s and the early 2010s were an era epitomized by Michael Jordan who reportedly said, “Republicans buy sneakers too,” when he was asked why he didn’t speak out on political issues. Jordan understood that the best way to unite the country was to appeal to everyone, regardless of their personal backgrounds. Often these tribes self-segregate based on their identities and their identities slowly infect everything, serving daily doses of affirmation designed to buttress whatever existing opinions and prejudices you already had. Social media, especially Twitter, the media’s drug of choice, is always convinced everything is evil. Thanks to social media, we’ve moved from trying to pick the person we hoped the other side would like to picking the person we knew would upset the other side most. Rather than recognize that Twitter, which only around 20 percent of Americans use, was not remotely representative of the larger American marketplace, sports media began to use the platform as a barometer of what people cared about. And Twitter — and other social-media sites — loved nothing more than dividing sports fans by politicizing what had once been apolitical. According to a CNN poll, 87 percent of Republicans said players taking a knee during the national anthem were doing the wrong thing, while 72 percent of Democrats said the opposite. We’ve gone from “Republicans buy sneakers too” to “We don’t care about Republicans” in the space of a few years.

Disney CEO Bob Iger admitted that ESPN has become overly political. When asked by The Hollywood Reporter in a new interview published Thursday how the sports network has changed over the past year, Iger said that the network is working on reeling in its politics and focusing on sports. "There’s been a big debate about whether ESPN should be focused more on what happens on the field of sport than what happens in terms of where sports is societally or politically," Iger said. Skipper shocked the media industry by leaving ESPN last year when a drug dealer attempted to extort him by using his cocaine habit against him. Prior to his sudden exit, Skipper was reguarly accused of making ESPN a left-leaning network. "He has brought back some balance." She also called Trump a “bigot” and “unqualified and unfit to be president.” Skipper moved her to the flagship “SportsCenter,” but she was eventually reassigned under Pitaro before leaving the network altogether. Last month, “First Take” co-host Max Kellerman made headlines by slamming Tiger Woods’ response to questions about President Trump. No matter who is in the office, you may like, dislike personality or the politics, but we all must respect the office,” Woods told reporters when asked about Trump. … To say you must have respect for the office — Tiger, be clear.

Nike took this route as its biggest representatives — most notably LeBron James and Serena Williams — have spoken out about police shootings of African-American men and problems facing the black community. NBA players in recent years have worn shoes with messages of “R.I.P. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2018 Athletic apparel companies have straddled the entertainment and cultural worlds for years partly with their emulation of black culture — think Run-DMC’s Adidas shoe deal in the wake of the group’s rap hit “My Adidas” and Nike’s “Air Jordan” campaigns featuring Michael Jordan and Spike Lee. And with that shift, Nike is taking the side of its superstar athletes — even if it means alienating Trump supporters and intertwining shoes and politics. Clothing and shoe makers have always had a back-and-forth relationship with minority communities. The relationship began in the 1980s, when Nike, Adidas, Reebok and Converse became staples of black fashion, and African-American youth sought to emulate the stars of the day, like Jordan, Run-DMC and other figures associated with the burgeoning hip-hop culture. Companies “have made millions off of following trends from the black community, and so they have to be cognizant of the feelings of that community,” said Antonio S. Williams, who teaches sports marketing at Indiana University. A company official said “things are going to move in the right direction” under a Trump presidency. Protesters took that as support for Trump and began burning New Balance shoes and posting videos. Nike has likely figured out that its core consumers — the people who regularly buy its sneakers and clothes — are probably the millennials and minority youth who already support Kaepernick or at least don’t mind the stance he is taking, Antonio Williams said.