AS I SEE IT COLUMN: The NFL’s double standard on inserting politics into sport

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/09/2025 (318 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Remember back in 2019 when Colin Kaepernick, then the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, upset many on the political right when he knelt on one knee during the playing of the national anthem at NFL games to protest the ongoing nightmare of police killing unarmed black men and boys?

Unlike the January 6th insurrection where 141 police officers were injured and six people lost their lives as a result of the attack on the Capital, Kaepernick’s silent and peaceful protest didn’t hurt anyone and nobody died.

The fact that no one was injured or killed didn’t matter to conservatives. (Strangely, it also didn’t matter to them that every single one of the 600 rioters who brutally attacked police officers and who were in jail after being convicted of felony assault of law enforcement, were pardoned and set free.)

But right-wingers were furious seeing Kaepernick and other NFL players drop to one knee. They were outraged that Kaepernick had inserted politics into the NFL, claiming that politics had no place in sport.

Fast forward to 2025 and the horrific murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk and conservative outrage about inserting politics into sport magically evaporated into thin air.

In an instant, conservatives suddenly wanted politics in their NFL games. They demanded it.

The Dallas Cowboys, Houston Texans, Green Bay Packers, Tennessee Titans, Arizona Cardinals, Kansas City Chiefs, New York Jets, New Orleans Saints and Miami Dolphins held a tribute for Kirk.

Meanwhile the Indianapolis Colts, Pittsburgh Steelers, Minnesota Vikings, Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, and Las Vegas Raiders did not hold a moment of silence for Kirk.

NFL teams are privately-owned companies and their owners have every right to do whatever they want with their team and with their stadium. That’s not the point.

No, the point is the soul-sucking hypocrisy on the part of conservatives and right-wingers who suddenly were demanding that politics be forcefully injected into the NFL, when just a few years ago they were adamantly against such a thing. Now, they were conveniently ecstatic with the teams that did honour Kirk and outraged at the teams that didn’t. (A quick online search shows all kinds of NFL season ticket holders vowing to return their season tickets and never buy any merchandise of teams that chose not to have a tribute to Kirk.)

This blatant, mind-numbing double standard, where right-wingers feel it’s okay for the NFL to insert conservative – but never progressive – politics into NFL games, is hard to stomach.

Right-wing displeasure with Kaepernick’s non-violent protests, contrasted to their delight in seeing NFL teams pay tribute to a slain conservative activist, makes it abundantly clear that their feigned outrage is highly selective, extremely biased, hollow to the core and has no integrity. None.

You either are okay with the NFL injecting politics into sport, or you aren’t. If you are, you have to allow that sometimes the politics won’t be ideologically aligned with your world view.

But when right-wingers are in favour of inserting politics into sport only when it fits their agenda, only when conservative causes are being promoted, when it’s so clearly a case of “it’s okay when we do it but not okay when progressives do it,” it’s unfair, unjust and exposes their faux outrage as lacking any moral legitimacy.

With the Kirk tributes we just witnessed in football stadiums throughout the league, the next time there is some kind of progressive protest at an NFL game, conservatives will have no right to complain.

It’s a tragedy that Kirk was murdered. It’s a tragedy all those unarmed black men were murdered.

There has to be room in this world for people to be exposed – even for just a few seconds – to viewpoints they don’t agree with. If you can’t handle an opposing point of view, just how weak-minded are you?