Kaepernick, Nike make deal amid NFL empire in decline
There's a standard joke among physicists — in theory, they tell each other, hummingbirds actually can't fly.
An equal measure of skepticism might be applied to Nike's new pitch man, Colin Kaepernick.
Sure, it might work, and we'd all be delightfully surprised when it does. It would be wonderful to behold. We'll see.
Kaepernick sparked a firestorm of controversy two years ago when the San Francisco 49ers quarterback refused to stand for the pre-game national anthem.
Kaepernick took the 49ers to the Super Bowl in 2013; he took them to the NFC championship the following season. But he's not remembered for that. Kaepernick is notorious for taking a knee during the anthem before several 2016 preseason and regular-season games, He said he was protesting police shootings and other social injustices faced by black men in America, and he couldn't “show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”
Kaepernick's protest galvanized a political rift in the autumn of 2016 that climaxed with the election of President Donald Trump. Trump harshly criticized Kaepernick's protest as disrespectful of the flag, the country it represents and the men and women who fought and died defending it.
The rift widened in 2017, when Kaepernick became a free agent. No team offered him a contract, which meant he was out of a job. In October, Kaepernick filed a grievance accusing NFL team owners of colluding to lock him out. Last week, an arbiter rejected the owners' request to dismiss Kaepernick's grievance.
Tell us again how this hummingbird will fly.
Nike is under contract with the NFL to provide game-day uniforms and sideline apparel for all 32 teams. The NFL and Nike renewed the contract for another eight years in March. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but a similar contract with the National Basketball Association was worth a reported $1 billion over eight years.
Add to the precarious balance a sharp decline in viewership over the past two NFL seasons. Television audiences fell by more than 8 percent during the 2016-17 season and by close to 10 percent in 2017-18, according to a Forbes Magazine, which attempted to downplay the role of Kaepernick's protest as a cause for the decline.
Military veterans would beg to differ.
“Most veterans that I know are already done with the NFL,” says Brian Searcy, a retired Air Force colonel. “The NFL ruled against the Dallas Cowboys wearing shoes that honored the five Dallas police officers that were killed, but somehow it's OK for professional athletes, who are employees of the league, to show this disrespect. With Nike making this announcement, I see it as only fueling the divisiveness that this entire issue has caused.”
If it's not about the anthem, then ... what? The concussions? Growing concerns about chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) led to the diagnosis of a record 281 concussions during the 2017-18 NFL preseason and regular season, including practices and games. One consequence is a steady decline of participation in youth football programs. Nationwide, the number of high school football players has fallen about 5 percent, from 1.11 million in 2008 to 1.06 million by 2017.
Regardless of the causes, fewer younger people are getting into football, and fewer people overall are watching it. Sure, the NFL remains the king of the prosports hill at $14 billion a year in revenue, a fact not lost on Nike, or on Kaepernick.
Maybe it makes sense to hire a sidelined nonplayer as a spokesman.
It might fly. Maybe.
