NFL: Invited Guest or Captive Audience?

My love of professional football goes back to my childhood.

When I was a small boy, living in Chicago, tears came to my eyes every time the old Chicago Cardinals beat my beloved Bears.

My dad, in those days, was a silent partner in a restaurant where members of the Bear’s team would gather to have dinner and relax after a Sunday game.

As a little boy, I was introduced to many of my Bear heroes as they came to dine. Dad’s main business had season tickets to the Bear games when they played at Wrigley Field.

I can still recall watching from the temporary stands as George Balanda, in the arms of a defensive lineman, completed a pass, seemingly from a “horizontal position.” I can recall Ed Sprinkle jarring the ball loose from an opposing back to set up a game-winning touchdown for the Bears.

I can recall watching Willie Galimore take a punt and sprint through a non-existent hole between two tacklers on his way to a touchdown. And I can recall sitting through the 1963 championship 14-10 win over the Giants with my brother and uncle in 10-below-zero weather at Wrigley Field.

And then one day, a number of National Football League players decided they weren’t going to stand for our national anthem. They were going to kneel in protest. When they did, I turned my back on the NFL, and quit watching its games.

Don’t get me wrong. As Americans, NFL players have constitutional rights to free speech and peaceable assembly. But I also have constitutional rights. I have a right to disagree with their protests, and a right to tune them out.

To me, it isn’t a question of constitutional rights. It’s a matter of civility and manners. I resent being a captive audience. If I go to a football game, or turn the TV on to watch a football game, I want to watch a football game.

From the time I was a child, I went to football games to see two teams play a football game. From 1948 on, if I wanted to watch “protests” or “political debate,” I could turn on TV and watch “Meet the Press” or some similar show.

The NFL teams, players and management alike, “invite” fans to watch their football games. When the fans come to see their games, the owners and players alike get rich.

Imagine being invited to your best friend’s home for dinner. He’s a Republican. You’re a Clinton Democrat. Then as dinner is about to be served, he brings out a huge portrait of Hillary Clinton, and rips it to shreds almost under your nose, saying, “I am protesting your worthless erstwhile candidate!”

Imagine going to the Quad City Music Guild to see a musical, or to Playcrafters to see a light comedy, and having one-third of the actors refuse to proceed with the show until they can educate you on the evils of abortion. Or the virtues of a woman’s right to choose?

Imagine going to church to participate in your church’s Sunday service, and having your priest or minister ask you to stand in silent protest against the president’s plan to build a wall. Or Bob Muller’s partisan investigation of the president?

When we are invited for dinner, attend the theater to see a play, or go to church to worship, we don’t come to be captive audiences to political protests. In each of these examples, the “hosts” have constitutional rights to speak and assemble. But the guests, in each case have, a right to expect that their hosts will act consistently with the purport of their invitations, and not use the invitations for a purpose foreign to the stated purpose of the invitations.

It is selfish, rude and ill-mannered to turn guests into a captive audience, and to force them to sit through something the host has to know may be offensive, as a condition receiving the contemplated benefit of the invitation.

The NFL owners and players invite their patrons to see a football games, and to pay a lot of money for that right. If rather than playing football, the players want to protest the country, the flag, or anything else, why not do it somewhere else?

Or why not be gracious and make an announcement? “The players plan to kneel down in protest against (whatever). That protest be in this stadium and will commence 20 minutes after the game. You are all invited stay and to participate.”

Posted: QCOline.com June 7, 2018
Copyright 2018, John Donald O'Shea