Despite the leagues’ head-in-sand denial of Mount Obvious, the NFL’s very bad horrible week is getting worse. The backlash is strong, and individual organizations are trying to lessen the financial losses while simultaneously league officials try to keep up the unity appearance.

Before getting to the stats of ticket sales, check out this video from CNN. I haven’t watched very-fake-news CNN for a few months other than YouTube snippets; but obviously they are facilitating the anti-Trump aspect to the NFL position.

This exchange between Spike Lee and a Gold Star family is quite remarkable and shows the inherent disconnect. Just below the initial surface Mr. Lee appears filled with the same race-based rage and hatred expressed by protesting NFL players.

Lee tries to obfuscate the NFL protests by saying the anti-American kneelers are not protesting the flag. However, Colin Kaepernick, the originator of the protests, specifically said the protests were against the flag and everything the U.S.A. stood for. The disingenuous Spike Lee claims to the contrary are silly and hollow.

Now to the ticket stats…

WASHINGTON – The National Football League is feeling the impact of the “Trump Effect.” Ticket sales since he called on team owners to fire players who take a knee to protest the National Anthem have cratered.

The online ticket reseller TickPick told Secrets that sales have dropped 17.9 percent, far more than the usual Week Three fall.

From TickPick:

17.9 percent decrease in NFL orders this week compared to the previous week.

Last year the drop was 10.8 percent in orders on Monday & Tuesday following Week Three games.

“We have seen a massive decrease in NFL ticket purchases this past week in comparison to years past. Week 3 seems to usually have less ticket orders than week 2, but this year ticket purchases are down more than 7 percent from this time last year,” said TickPick’s Jack Slingland. (read more)

My own interest in this is simply from the position of measuring the sense of the electorate and the level of expressed frustration by looking at the outcomes. (I quit watching the NFL back in 2015 when this nonsense began)

Trying to make this into an NFL -vs- Trump issue is not going to help the football league’s collapsing business model. There really is no viable exit from the position the NFL has put themselves in. Short of an honest apology and reaching out to the President, which they are incapable of doing, and against the reality of 60% of Americans disagreeing with the NFL position, their business will remain in an inescapable spiral until they exhaust their own capital reserves.

The virtue-signaling NFL executives are now facing a diminished level of fan support and financial loss that will forever impact the league (and the players therein). However, it’s the individual team owners, or partnerships, who ultimately will bear the brunt of the financial collapse.

There is no doubt the level of fan support has already been severely impacted. The only issue is at what point does the quantification of loss stabilize so that financial losses can be measured. The preliminary data is beginning to show the drops, but the silent majority are where the real determinations will be evidenced. TV ratings and game attendance.

In the interim, a few teams are trying to have it both ways. The Denver Broncos now say they will stand for the National Anthem, yet their presser calls for social justice unity.

Stupid is, as stupid does.

A message from our players: pic.twitter.com/eQs3z7OcqV — Denver Broncos (@Broncos) September 28, 2017