On Thursday night, millions of NFL fans saw and heard Colin Kaepernick for the first time in months. As the Eagles and Falcons trudged through a disjointed, penalty-ridden opener, Kaepernick’s narration of a 90-second Nike ad during the third quarter ranked among the night’s most memorable moments. The marketing partnership between Kaepernick and Nike has been discussed on late-night TV, examined in The New Yorker, and criticized by President Donald Trump. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it went unmentioned during the NBC telecast.
NBC did show the anthem on Thursday night, but only because that’s what it has always done on the first Thursday of the season.