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<\/p>\nRUSH: Hey, folks, what would do more damage to the National Football League: Losing a season because of the virus or playing a season with mostly empty stadiums and politicizing every game with the players kneeling and opposing the national anthem? What would be more damage to the NFL, do you think?<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: So, what would be the best thing for the National Football League? Let me just take an updated survey. You think they\u2019re gonna play? (interruption) You do. (interruption) You think they\u2019re gonna play, Brian? (interruption) Brian is a big Tampa Bay Buccaneer fan, before even Tom Brady signed up. Mr. Snerdley is a Cowboys fan. (interruption) Dak Prescott? (interruption) Well, who cares. He signed the franchise tender and they didn\u2019t give him a long-term deal so he\u2019s gonna make $33 million this year. That\u2019s the franchise tag number. Signing a long-term deal could go either way. The salary cap next year is gonna plunge. They\u2019re gonna have to make some adjustments.<\/p>\n
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The league knows they\u2019re gonna lose their shirt this year, the owners, and next. They want to write off all the losses in two years. The players want the losses spread out over 10 years. I said the players. The players don\u2019t even know what the hell this is. This is the players\u2019 leadership, the union leadership is trying to argue for 10-year amortization schedule and the write-off of the losses.<\/p>\n
This is my point. I, frankly, don\u2019t see how they\u2019re gonna play. I mean, even if they don\u2019t allow fans in. And in California and Pennsylvania, Philadelphia just announced no large gatherings will be permitted to the end of the year or some such thing, same in California. So the idea of having fans in there is not even possible in Los Angeles or Santa Clara where the 49ers play, Eagles in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n
I just don\u2019t see how they\u2019re gonna do it. But we\u2019ll see. But this is the source of my question. And this is not a new question for me. Ever since the league made it clear they\u2019re gonna try to play, I have had serious doubts \u2019cause there\u2019s been one thing, one thing that has been guiding the National Football League and the NBA and Major League Baseball. You know what that one thing is?<\/p>\n
Hope. They\u2019ve been hoping that something happens with the virus that makes everything better. They\u2019ve been hoping that it\u2019ll go away. They\u2019ve been hoping there will be a therapeutic discovery. They\u2019ve been hoping that there will be a vaccine. They\u2019ve been hoping that they find a way to get the players to stop scratching their crotches and spitting.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ve been hoping for any number of things, and none of the stuff they\u2019ve been hoping for has happened. So the question is this. What would do more damage to the NFL long-term: Lose a season because of the virus — just shut down, don\u2019t play it — or play the season with empty stadiums after having thoroughly politicized the game?<\/p>\n
If the season is canceled because of the virus — there are no games — then maybe the NFL would come to its senses about playing to anthems kneeling during the actual anthem. Maybe they would come to their senses about celebrating Marxism with a pro-Marxist group called Black Lives Matter.<\/p>\n
Maybe they would find a way to get the politicization of the game out of it. Maybe they\u2019d find a way to end these never ending debates about things that have absolutely nothing to do with football. To date — and this is a very important point — to date, from the beginning of professional football to the present, players have been compensated like entertainers.<\/p>\n
The players are acting now, some of them, like they want to be compensated like politicians. The number of players who actually want to be seen as politicians instead of entertainers, well, let\u2019s throw the politicians\u2019 pay scale at \u2019em and let\u2019s take away 90% of their entertainment salary. You want to be a politician? Well, this is what politicians make, 200 grand a year. That\u2019s not even the league minimum for rookies.<\/p>\n
So let\u2019s say they try to play the season. There are no fans. All you got is television, and before every game there\u2019s a bunch of players during the two national anthems taking a knee during the American national anthem. And here\u2019s the media hyping it, talking about what great, courageous guys they are, and then interviewing them.<\/p>\n
You know, TV is gonna have to make some adjustments, like interviewing players during the game. They\u2019re gonna have to do something. They\u2019re gonna have to get some concessions from the owners and from the league because having games plays in these mammoth stadiums with no fans is going to totally change the experience, so they gonna have to do something.<\/p>\n
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Can you imagine interviews with players, “How was it to kneel? What was going through your mind as you kneeled during the anthem?”<\/p>\n
“I tell you what was going through my mind, Jim, I hate racism. I hate bigotry. And I simply despise the way the cops are treating us, and I was honored to do it, I was honored to kneel during that.” And they think people are gonna watch this.<\/p>\n
“What did you think when you were kneeling during the anthem? Did you players have a meeting before the game? Did you all decide to do it?”<\/p>\n
“Yes, we did. We wanted to come together and express our opposition to police brutality and America.” Okay.<\/p>\n
“What were you thinking when you got your first touchdown grab?”<\/p>\n
“I was thinking how much the cops probably hated seeing me do it.” Can you imagine this stuff? Because this is what the NFL is on the way to becoming. So would they be better advised just to not even play this year and try to let all this stuff cool down, or would that even work? Would this pent-up frustration carry over to the next season, whenever it is?<\/p>\n
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I guarantee you wherever they go, it\u2019s not gonna be nearly as expensive as advertising the NFL was. And you throw in the fact there\u2019s not gonna be any college football this year, that\u2019s another huge hit to TV. The ripple effect that this is all going to have on TV is incomprehensible right now. Everybody thinks, “Well, we may play, we may not play.”<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/NFLFlagChiefs-Anthem-1.jpg\")
This is all gonna have a horrible, horrible impact on the country at large that nobody can see yet. You know, these leftists and the Democrats that are really trying to make all this negative stuff happen. It\u2019s all about one thing. It\u2019s all about getting rid of Trump. Everything they\u2019ve tried has failed. So now they\u2019re willing to just tank the entire country to do it and take everybody and everything with them. And they might succeed. Look how easy it was to erase a three-year, robust, unprecedented, growing economy. We did it in two months. We destroyed it in two months.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Redskins.jpg\")
So, no, I don\u2019t know what everybody\u2019s been breathlessly awaiting. But it\u2019s easy to guess. It\u2019s either the announcement of the name — you know, there\u2019s some people who think that Snyder\u2019s running a giant scam on everybody. On Monday they announced that the Redskins are done as a name, the team name, done, and that a new name will be announced at some point down the road. What if they don\u2019t announce a new team name this year? The media\u2019s starting to think they\u2019ve been had.<\/p>\n