Yahoo Sports · Sep 13, 2020
NFL pregame shows react to social justice movements
NFL pregame shows have to walk a thin line between news and promotion. While they’ve got to acknowledge major news stories in the league, their chief purpose is to set the stage for upcoming games. Stories tend to be of the uplifting, inspirational, motivational variety.
But what happens when one of the biggest NFL stories in years is anything but uplifting and motivational? With plans in motion across the NFL to acknowledge the need for social justice and police reform, NFL pregame shows and announcers faced a range of choices:
1. Whether to acknowledge the social justice movement at all;
2. How to acknowledge it, i.e. how much weight to give the movement in the pregame broadcast;