Pot Shots '17, Volume 2

English: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There's a lot of talk about how low the TV ratings are for the first two weeks of the National Football League's 2017 schedule.  People mention politics, Mother Nature and protests over the owners' continued refusal to hire quarterback Colin Kaepernick as some of the reasons why they're not watching.  They could have also mentioned over-exposure, lousy games, and competition from that smartphone you're reading this on.  But the first two Sunday night games on NBC topped the ratings, so not all is dire.  Let's see what happens when the weather turns colder.
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The NFL already has a Breast Cancer Exploitation Month (October) and a Suck Up to the Military Month (November), so why not have a month to highlight the activism of the players?  That's a great idea, except that the league might shift the focus from players protesting racist cops and the re-emergence of white nationalist groups to promoting NFL-sponsored community outreach programs.  Maybe it would be better if the league got out of the 'cause' business altogether.  Because some people just want to watch football, and not another league-sponsored plea to give to a dubious charity's disaster relief effort.
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Was it a mistake to put two NFL teams in Los Angeles, the city league owners have coveted for so long?  Neither the Rams nor the Chargers sold out their home games last Sunday.  Granted, it's not easy to fill the massive Memorial Coliseum.  But what's the Chargers' excuse, failing to sell out their tiny (by NFL standards) soccer park?  Charging $100 for parking certainly doesn't help.  The truth is that LA did just fine without professional football for two decades.  But now they're stuck with two mediocre franchises playing in temporary homes, until a new stadium is ready for them in 2020.  Or the NFL moves the Chargers back to San Diego, whichever comes first.
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ESPN, already having problems in keeping subscribers because of cord cutting, has bungled its handling of a controversy involving "Sportscenter" anchor Jemele Hill.  She sent out tweets critical of President Donald Trump, calling him a 'white supremacist', which led to Trump demanding an apology. Instead of suspending or defending the African-American Hill for her ability to comment on the world beyond sports, the Worldwide Leader chose to reprimand her for violating the network's social media policy.  Hill then issued a "sorry not sorry" apology.  If ESPN discourages the discussion of politics as it relates to sports by its commentators, then they just don't understand the world we live in now.  And neither do some of its viewers with ostrich mentalities.