In recent years, two things have defined the National Football League: wokeness and greed.
Although professional football remains wildly popular in spite of it all, President Donald Trump has put the league on notice.
In an interview posted Sunday to YouTube, Trump told veteran journalist Sharyl Attkisson, host of the weekly Sunday news program “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson,” that he hated the NFL’s move to subscription-based broadcast platforms because, as the president put it, many fans “don’t make enough money to go and pay this.”
That statement, of course, carries more weight than the average disgruntled fan’s complaint. After all, in April, Trump’s Justice Department reportedly opened an antitrust investigation into the NFL over its various broadcast deals.
Attkisson cited that investigation and asked the president for his opinion about it.
“Your Justice Department is investigating the NFL for moving a lot of viewers from free broadcast television to more expensive pay programming like Amazon Prime, Netflix, Peacock, and YouTube, where the NFL makes more money,” she said. “Do you think this is price-gouging on America’s favorite sport? Should the government do anything about it?”
Trump responded by calling the situation “tough.”
“You’ve got people that love football,” he said. “They’re great people. They don’t make enough money to go and pay this.”
In typical Trumpian fashion, the president then veered slightly off topic into his hatred of the NFL’s new kickoff rule.
Attkisson, however, was not familiar with the rule, so Trump returned to the matter at hand.
“But they have to be careful,” the president said of the NFL, “because others have tried this and all of a sudden you don’t have a sport anymore.”
Then, he added the most important part of his answer — that the government “probably will” have to do something about it.
“There’s something very sad when they take football away from many, many people,” Trump continued. “Very sad. I don’t like it.”
The president then backtracked somewhat by replying “I don’t know” when Attkisson again asked about government action. But he made his own sentiments clear.
“They’re making a lot of money,” he said. “They could make a little bit less.”
Readers can watch the full interview in the YouTube video below. The relevant segment began around the 7:50 mark.
[embedded content]
When the NFL releases its 2026 schedule on Thursday, some games will appear on non-cable platforms like Amazon and Netflix.
For many years, college basketball analyst Jay Bilas has described the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament (“March Madness”) as “idiot-proof.” He said it again in a March interview with the “Hoops HQ” podcast on YouTube.
In other words, no matter how many times greedy NCAA officials try to screw up the tournament by making foolish changes to it, the tournament remains popular.
The same holds true for the NFL.
For one thing, under Commissioner Roger Goodell, the NFL has embraced wokeness in all its ugliness. That means, above all, an obsession with skin color, both in the coaching ranks and in the national anthem.
Moreover, for February’s Super Bowl, Goodell gave Middle America the middle finger with a halftime show featuring the America-hating, lawlessness-loving rapper Bad Bunny.
Add to all of this madness the intangible-yet-palpable sense that the NFL has watered down or even sissified its product with changes such as the aforementioned kickoff rule, and the league very much runs the risk of alienating hardcore fans.
Then there’s the NFL’s insatiable greed.
For instance, after decades of enriching its owners by building publicly financed stadiums, the NFL in 2021 expanded from 16 to 17 regular season games.
Rather than give the home fans who paid for the stadium an extra game every other year, however, the league decided to fatten its slate of international games.
To illustrate, in 2026 teams from the National Football Conference will play nine home games, and American Football Conference teams will then play nine homes games in 2027.
Alas, for 2026 regular season games in Australia, Brazil, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, and Mexico, the NFL has identified the NFC’s Los Angeles Rams, Dallas Cowboys, New Orleans Saints, Washington Commanders, Detroit Lions, Atlanta Falcons, and San Francisco 49ers, respectively, as “home” teams, per CBS Sports.
(Note: the AFC’s Jacksonville Jaguars have a special relationship with London that has them playing home games annually in the UK’s capital.)
That means that fans of those seven NFC teams will not receive a ninth home game in 2026. Thanks, though, for the tax-funded stadium!
Of course, some readers might conclude that the federal government has better things to do than challenge NFL broadcast deals. And they might be right.
Still, Trump had it right, too. Even in the wildly popular “idiot-proof” NFL, fans’ willingness to pay absurd prices for live football might have its limits.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
Submit a Correction →
