Ask someone who gives a shit. I don't care about the entertainment habits of deplorables.

I'm sure that a protest is part of it, but the pandemic moved schedules and life all around. What % of average fans know the seasons are back on?

Check back next year and we'll have a better understanding of whether it matters or not.

But I think once football season gets started, those who are addicted will return.

It was about the domestic abuse of the era and the NFL and NBA turning a blind eye to it. I never took up an interest in it again. Had more fun with the wife and kids doing anything else.

I don’t know of a single sports fan who has stopped watching sports because some athletes kneel during the National Anthem.

-Laelth

they watch in secret and say they dont in public

Then, 10 days later they're at the course talking about the MNF game.
At best, they didn't watch for one weekend.
It's just whining.

I don’t know of any who stopped watching.

-Laelth

Kaepernick and other kneelers, are among the heroes in my lifetime.

To them I say

"Toughen up buttercup. People have a different opinion than you.

They can do just fine without you."

My bet is those saying they won't watch anymore didn't watch sports before this or, as most trumpets do, they are lying and will watch as usual.

Bunch of fainting nancies.

They cheer violent, assault-rifle-bearing terrorists in the street, but fall down and die if someone protests peacefully.

They're welcome to go to Hell and stay there...

...end up watching it anyway ( which they all will do) whats the point of even allowing the comment to further ferment.

They can go pout in the corner and nobody will care, not even other Pouty McPoutfaces.

And, they still are!
They lied about not watching.
I've caught a few lying about not watching football anymore.
They're still watching the games.

They don't understand the kneeling

But truth be told, they didn't really see it.
The anthem is played 5 or 10 minutes before game time. The broadcast starts at noon central, and the game starts after a couple minute intro.
The kneeling players aren't even on TV.
If PINO hadn't done his rile the rubes whining, most of them wouldn't even know it happened.

Not sure anybody gives two shits about the viewing habits of a hand full of loudmouth racists. Certainly, the athletes who choose to take a knee don't care.



Borrow from Melanoma's jacket: "I don't care, do you?"



Laura

there are very few people like that. People who get incensed by stuff like that love their rage. Plus, their lives center around drinking beer and watching sports.

I would bet a lot that they'll crawl back. Just like when people just like them VOWED to never watch baseball if they let Black's play, and on, and on, and on.

The leagues will be fine, just like in the past.

With the advent of streaming services, and more selection that overall everyone viewing the same show/event has been trending down. So live sporting events still draw big numbers, but was less than prior years, more options equals fewer viewers. The "I quit" because of kneeling is a very tiny percentage of the overall drop, say maybe 1%.

I'm about an avid a sports watcher as anyone, and right now, a lot of the magic is just missing from watching sports. Baseball seems to have found a way to make it a little more watchable (especially the teams with the cutouts in the stands; I LOVE those), and the EPL was okay when they resumed (but wouldn't be without piped in crowd noise). I realize that for the EPL, you listen to the fans as much as see them; they all wear the same dark colored North Face jackets anyway.

Basketball is not interesting at all right now (part of it is their playoff structure), and hockey, a favorite sport of mine, is almost unwatchable without fans. Those tarps or whatever they have stretched over the seats don't help. They are a bluish gray color that just makes the whole atmosphere deader than it is. I feel as if I'm watching a practice, not a game.

I didn't think it would make much of a difference in tennis. My apologies to the fans! You matter! Of course, the US Open always had that raucous feel, but fan-watching at Wimbledon and the French Open is, I now realize, as much a part of the experience as the game. Watching everyone hold their breaths and then burst into wild applause - well, i didn't realize how magical that really was. I've watched a few matches, but it's just dead air without the fans.

I don't know how the NFL will be. If they can create any kind of an atmosphere, the way baseball sort of has, maybe it will be okay.

Anyway, long story short, I think that once sports resume full throttle, the fans will come back, and the ones who don't weren't really fans anyway.

Not my time or emotional investment at stake.

Were recently seen kneeling also. Why leave them any pleasures?