Kneelhawks? TV ratings prove anti-Seahawks rhetoric false
Nov 14, 2017, 11:51 AM | Updated: 1:28 pm
(AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)
(AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)
The anti-Seahawks movement stemming from the decision by some players to kneel or stay seated during the National Anthem may be confined to a vocal minority, or people living outside of the Greater Seattle area.
Seahawks fans react to Bennett’s anthem protest
Bob Condotta with The Seattle Times reports television ratings for Seahawks games in the Seattle-Tacoma region remain near those of 2013, when the team won the Super Bowl.
According to Condotta, there was an average rating of 38.6 during the 2013 season. Thursday’s game against the Arizona Cardinals had a rating of 39.3. The previous two games had ratings of 39.9 and 37.6, he reports.
Meanwhile, NFL broadcasts have struggled with lower ratings as a whole. Though they can vary from station-to-station, Condotta writes that ratings for the season were down more than 5 percent last week.
The decreased ratings have been, at least, partially attributed to players throughout the league refusing to stand for the National Anthem. Colin Kaepernick was the first to draw attention to not taking a knee during the national anthem. Other players followed, including the Seahawks’ Michael Bennett and several other players, saying they were expressing unfair treatment of people of color in the United States. Some cited racial inequality, others pointed specifically to police brutality.
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It became a more heated topic when President Trump said the NFL should fire players who kneel during the anthem.
“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, you’d say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired,’” Trump said to loud applause Friday night at a rally in Huntsville, Alabama.
Things took off from there, with angered NFL fans across the country vowing to no longer watch games and some even burning their NFL paraphernalia. Perhaps that outrage, though, doesn’t include Seattle’s hometown fans.
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