Recently within the NFL, players have been making waves across America because some refuse to stand for the national anthem that occurs before the beginning of every football game. What they’re protesting though is a mixed bag. Some are protesting racial equality, police brutality, or certain things that President Trump has said against players who kneel during the anthem.

The situation itself is touchy, and very sensitive because a lot of people feel as though it is disrespectful to the American flag and those who have put their lives on the line for it. But also there are lots of other people who believe that it is within the player’s first amendment rights to protest during the anthem.

However people are saying that not standing for the anthem is not ok or acceptable, like one Jake Carlsen who thought “I think they need to be suspended, just because it’s a terrible thing, if you really don’t like this country that much, why don’t you go live in Iran or something, I mean seriously, stand for your country, or don’t do that, and don’t do that on TV, you can express your right to protest Trump, but don’t do that on TV, millions of people respect you, and that’s not ok.”

This movement is starting to have effects on schools. At Victory & Praise Christian Academy, a high school in Texas had two student players who kneeled during the anthem, and in response, they were pulled from the game by their coach and ultimately removed from the team.

After being asked what his response would be to fellow players on the football team kneeling during the national anthem, Nathaniel Johnson, 10 stated “If it was our football team, I’d be incredibly pissed at them, I would want coach Tupper to do something about that because there’s no point in kneeling for the national anthem. If you don’t even like Donald Trump, you’re kneeling for all the dead men and women that have served this country so you just keep that stuff out of football. I say if some were to do that, get them off the team.”

But it’s not only schools and their players feeling the effects, it’s the NFL also, and they’re getting hit the hardest. With the recent events of players kneeling, attendance of games has dropped dramatically as this event left the Rams and 49’rs game with a half-empty 49’rs stadium, along with the number of people who tune in to watch the game on TV. This, in turn, has to lead to the value of companies who broadcast the NFL to plunge by 1, to 8%.

Holden Nitchals said, “ I think it means it’s going to be more politically charged, no one is really going to boycott the NFL, let’s be serious, probably won’t be a whole lot in the long run.”

However, Christopher Cross 10, another player on the Lewis- Palmer Rangers football team, stated that “I think that it’s a problem for them, because a very large amount of the nation is very fond of their country and how they represent themselves, so I feel like the NFL could be in big trouble if they don’t get that under control, they could lose a lot of viewership and a lot of those athletes could be very quickly unemployed, they don’t have very much going for themselves outside of athletics.”

No matter what, this flare-up in the NFL will fizzle out, and things will be business as usual, and everything eventually being overlooked.