NFL owners to meet, with racial divide on the agenda
Minutes before kickoff for the first round of Sunday’s football games, the National Football League website carried two unusual features.
Below the usual fare of game-day predictions and fantasy matchups were slideshows of Baltimore players visiting schools with Baltimore police and of Miami Dolphins and the league commissioner doing the same with police in their city.
It was a jarring bit of social activism for a sports league site on game day. The slideshows are the NFL’s tentative steps to try to solve its “anthem problem.” Team owners want black players to stop kneeling during the playing of the national anthem, which has drawn the ire of the president, angered many fans, and threatens to turn off sponsors and advertisers. They’re also leery of alienating activist players, who have been protesting police treatment of African-Americans.
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