Baltimore Ravens players came out ready to battle the Pittsburgh Steelers but didn’t realize they would have to battle the fans first.
The Ravens team took a knee for the National Anthem and the fans had an absolutely epic response. As soon as the Ravens players got on one knee, the entire stadium began booing the players. The Ravens united with each other, but they forgot to unite with the people who pay their salary. It’s great that the Baltimore Ravens players are united because that’s how a team should be, but they cannot forget about the fans. The fans are the most important part of their job. If the fans are happy, then the fans are spending money, and the athletes continue earning millions.
Let’s take a look at the video of the Baltimore Ravens players taking a knee for the National Anthem:
The video, posted on Twitter by a man named Jessie stated “Ravens fans cheered as announcer said team endorses kindness, unity, equality & justice then immediately boo when team kneels before anthem” and his video shows exactly that. His description of the event is perfect because it shows just how good football can be – but then the results of irritating the fans take over and removes all the talk of kindness, unity, and equality.
According to Jamison Hensley of ESPN, “Ravens players knelt before the national anthem began, and then rose. There was a clamoring of boos when the players knelt. Before the anthem, an announcement was made in the stadium for everyone to pray as a nation to embrace kindness, justice, unity and equality.” 
Instead, it seems like Ravens fans just wanted to embrace football.
That’s right folks! Football fans pay to see football. They don’t pay to be part of a social justice warrior convention. Football fans want to see bone-crushing hits, amazing touchdown runs and passes, and good old-fashioned gridiron grit. Football fans don’t care about your protest. Football fans don’t care about your social issues. Football fans care about football and the moment you stop providing the fans with that, that’s the moment they stop spending their hard earned money.
Football fans spend way too much to attend games, pay for parking, buy food and drinks, and it often costs an entire paycheck just to get a family to a game once per year. The average NFL athlete earns way more than the middle-class Americans can ever dream of, so if the players want to talk about equality, then they need to think about their fans and how much money we don’t make.
Average citizens spend tons of money to watch talented athletes perform, but the athletes have turned on the fans and now they’re disrespecting fans and the country. That’s not going to last very long because revenue drops will surely irritate team owners. If the owners lose money, then they’ll likely not be very happy. That will trickle down to the players and coaching staff who could lose money as well. Then something has to be done. Something has to be said. The owners will get involved and squash the protest. In fact, if the revenue lost is really bad, then Roger Goodell might have to get involved. If Goodell eliminates the National Anthem protests from football, then that might be the first thing he’s done that people actually like.
Meanwhile, the Pittsburgh Steelers are just standing around looking silly.
According to reports, it seems as though the Steelers came out of the locker room this week and just stood there. As of right now, 3:42 pm, the Ravens are losing 19-9. It seems like every time they take a knee, they don’t seem to get up from it. They lost to the Jaguars last week by a score of 44-7. Whenever the Ravens take a knee, they apparently don’t get up very much!
What’s also funny is the fact that the Ravens are the home team today. Their own fans are booing them. The fans are supposed to boo the Pittsburgh Steelers, but they’ve chosen to throw shade on their own fans. That actually makes perfect sense because the home team fans should always care about how the home team is treating the fans. If the home team is disrespectful to the home team fans, then the home team fans should boo. Ravens players should feel lucky that it’s not snowing today and the fans are heaving snowballs at them. Or worse – ice balls!
Imagine being a Pittsburgh Steeler player and you’re feeling more welcome, as a visiting team, in another team’s stadium.
Imagine spending $40 to park, $50 for food/drinks in the parking lot, $500 for tickets for a family of five, and then whatever money spent inside the stadium where everything is price gouged beyond recognition. That’s nothing to a millionaire athlete, but that could be almost a paycheck to a regular American citizen who works hard at a job that doesn’t pay that much.
