The rise of people like Colin Kaepernick and left wing politics in professional sports has had a devastating effect on the industry. Just ten years ago, it would be unimaginable for a big football game to have lots of empty seats but it’s happening now and the NFL has begun to notice.
The Big Lead reports:
The NFL Is Seriously Concerned With Empty Stadiums
Week 1 of the NFL season had plenty of important stories worth following, but maybe the most entertaining was the mostly empty stadiums in Los Angeles and Santa Clara. Both the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers had sparse crowds for their home openers, and that has not gone unnoticed by the NFL.
NFL spokesman Joe Lockhart on the attendance in LA & SF: “Any time we empty seats that something we want to address.” Focused on sellouts.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) September 13, 2017
Ian Rapoport’s report (try and say that fast five times) above shows that the league is clearly worried about the optics of half-filled stadiums. And they should be. It’s embarrassing for the league.
This is what the 49ers crowd looked like at the start of the second half in Week 1:
Second half kickoff pic.twitter.com/sEQgbtfJIq
— Ann Killion (@annkillion) September 10, 2017
Trending: WHY? Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer Orders Shutdown Of Oil Pipeline During Gas Crisis
And here’s what the Rams crowd looked like in the first quarter:
Los Angeles has football fever and they have it BAD pic.twitter.com/nvQOg1kp6l
— Clemzingis (@TheClemReport) September 10, 2017
People don’t go to ball games to be lectured to about politics. The NFL should get their act together or more people will vote with their wallets.
Join the conversation!
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please hover over that comment, click the ∨ icon, and mark it as spam. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.