{"id":263200,"date":"2018-02-06T15:41:00","date_gmt":"2018-02-06T20:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/?p=263200"},"modified":"2018-02-06T16:35:44","modified_gmt":"2018-02-06T21:35:44","slug":"nbc-news-white-men-the-culprit-behind-nfl-decline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2018\/02\/06\/nbc-news-white-men-the-culprit-behind-nfl-decline\/","title":{"rendered":"NBC News: White Men the Culprit Behind NFL Decline"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH:  “White Men Are Huge Reason for Decline in NFL Interest<\/a>,” according to the latest poll,” and this makes sense.  White men were their audience, were their base, and the NFL has ignored their base and angered them.  We see it in politics all the time, do we not?  “Declining interest in the National Football League has been a closely covered topic throughout the last season, but an NBC News\/Wall Street Journal poll<\/a> delved into demographics behind the drop \u2014 and it found that white people, specifically white men, are the biggest culprits.”<\/p>\n

Note that the word “culprit” is used to describe white men refusing to watch the NFL.<\/p>\n

Culprit.<\/p>\n

“What are the overall numbers?  The number of people overall who say they follow the NFL has declined sharply since 2014, NBC News said. Last month\u2019s poll showed that 49% of responders indicated they closely follow the league, but that figure was 58% in January 2014.”  So it\u2019s gone down basically nine points.  That\u2019s not insignificant.  “But among whites, that figure is down 12 points from 59% in 2014 to 47% in 2018, NBC News said. …<\/p>\n

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“‘So, in a sense, the NFL\u2019s viewership\/popularity problems seem to boil down to a problem with white men,\u2019 NBC News noted” in reporting their poll. Uh, I know what they mean, but that\u2019s not the way to write this.  White men are not the “problem.”  The NFL has the problem, and white men are determining — some of them — that the NFL is no longer what it once was.  But this is clever journalism.  You see how this is written?  This is NBC News reporting on their own poll.<\/p>\n

“So, in a sense, the NFL\u2019s viewership\/popularity problems seem to boil down to a problem with white men.”  Now, you might think I\u2019m being overly analytical.  No, folks, you have to put these in context.  Are there not stories each and every day that the problems in American culture can be traced back to white men?  This is just the latest example.  Subset of white men is white Christians, and then a further subset is male and female white Christians.  But, I mean, they are the targets — they are the focus — whenever there is criticism of intolerance.<\/p>\n

What they really trying to say here?  What they want their readers to conclude is that white men, who used to love the NFL are no longer watching it because they\u2019re a bunch of intolerant bigots who are not willing to accept the modern evolution of the culture of the NFL.  And so we have an entity that is losing its audience, and the problem is the audience, and the audience is intolerant.  Now, does that not fit with a consistent portrayal of white men, white women, white Christians that we have been treated to for the last seven or eight years intensely?<\/p>\n

“White Men Are Huge Reason for Decline in NFL Interest” is the headline.  Okay, you can make a case that the headline\u2019s accurate.  I could make a case the headline is not trying to play games.  “NFL\u2019s Audience Decline Traced to Lagging Interest in White Men.” At least the problem would be pegged to the NFL.  Right now, this whole story is blaming white men, blaming the audience, blaming the customer. So this is written in such a way that it\u2019s not gonna result in anything getting fixed.<\/p>\n

Because the NFL is going to be assured that it\u2019s not the problem, that its problem is its audience.  And I\u2019ll tell you the next thing to come.  The next thing to come… Mark my words on this. The next thing to happen is — and I don\u2019t know if it will ever be stated publicly. The next thing to happen is that somebody will say, “Well, this had to happen sometime.  The NFL\u2019s got to stay young.  It has to stay hip.  If it\u2019s to have a future, it cannot rely on its old audience base of white men.”<\/p>\n

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So this is ultimately going to be portrayed as the NFL making a brilliant marketing move by angering its No. 1 fan base.  It won\u2019t be long before some Drive-By sports liberal gloms onto that angle and credits the NFL for really being brilliant in its foresight.  “Why, the NFL knew all along what it was doing allowing those protests!  It was getting rid of the audience that nobody wants anymore!”  You wait.  You\u2019re gonna see stories like that be, and it isn\u2019t gonna be long.  This is the first one.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

Drew in Lafayette, Louisiana, great to have you, sir. How are you doing?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Great, Rush. Bayou Bengal dittos. This assertion that there\u2019s some sort of racial component to explain the drop in the NFL popularity, if there is a racial component, how does that person explain the popularity of SEC football. The most conservative white males in the U.S. are in the South, and yet SEC football, ACC football, Texas football, those stadiums pack a hundred thousand fans. CBS pays the SEC millions for a weekly game, and there are a high percentage of SEC football players who are African-American. So this racial-component excuse in the NFL is ludicrous because how do you explain the popularity of SEC football? It\u2019s ridiculous. And, Rush, if you never made a night game at Tiger Stadium in LSU against Alabama or Georgia, you need to do it, because it will change your life.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Is that right?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Oh, you will flip from the NFL to college in a heartbeat. And we want you on our team. So come on down to Tiger Stadium against an Alabama or an —<\/p>\n

RUSH: That\u2019s awfully kind, I appreciate it. I\u2019ve been to one nighttime college — well, I\u2019ve been to a couple Nebraska night games, but I was sitting in the corporate skybox up there.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Rush —<\/p>\n

RUSH: Hey, I was invited. What am I gonna do? But I have been to one nighttime college football game in the stands when I was a kid. It was Mizzou-Arkansas. I know that\u2019s nothing like Alabama-LSU, but at the time it was big. Mizzou won that night, and our hosts — my dad was a lawyer, had some clients down in Little Rock who invited us. They were in tears at the end of the game! They were crying. They were trying not to cry, they were trying to show us how tough they were. They congratulated us on the win, but they were crying. I remember enough about the atmosphere to know what you\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Well, but Tiger Stadium is different, and I think everybody will say that, so make it down to Tiger Stadium for a night game, and I\u2019m telling you, there\u2019s nothing like it.<\/p>\n

RUSH: How do you even get in? I can\u2019t imagine anybody — the students don\u2019t even get very many tickets to these games, right?<\/p>\n

CALLER: Oh, no, the students have probably about 10,000. And they get there early, and you can tell it\u2019s a big game because the aroma of bourbon kind of wafts across the field about an hour before kickoff so then you know it\u2019s a really big game.<\/p>\n

RUSH: An aroma.<\/p>\n

CALLER: Aroma of bourbon.<\/p>\n