An ESPN commentator said Tuesday the recent demands from Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones that all of his athletes stand for the national anthem has similarities to slave ownership, in what is the latest episode of rising political tensions between the NFL, the popular sports channel, and the president and his supporters.
“The word that comes to my mind, and I don’t care who doesn’t like me using it, is ‘plantation,'” Michael Wilbon said Monday on ESPN’s popular show “Pardon The Interruption.” “The players are here to serve me, they will do what I want no matter how much I pay them. They are not equal to me. That’s what this says to me and to mine.”
Jones told the media on Sunday after a last-minute loss to the Green Bay Packers that he and his team were, “going to respect the flag.”
“If there is anything that is disrespectful to the flag then we will not play,” Jones said, according to the Dallas Morning News. “You understand? If we are disrespecting the flag then we won’t play. Period.”
The stance drew praise from President Trump on Monday.
“A big salute to Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, who will BENCH players who disrespect our Flag. ‘Stand for Anthem or sit for game!'” the president tweeted.
The politics of NFL protests during the national anthem and the president have already engulfed the Disney sports brand in recent weeks
Monday, ESPN suspended host Jemele Hill, who tweeted that those who supported athletes in their anthem protests should boycott Dallas Cowboys sponsors.
Hill had sparked controversy in September with tweets saying Trump was a “white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists.”
The protests of kneeling during the national anthem started in 2016 but had appeared to be on the wane until Trump reignited the issue while making remarks at a rally in Alabama.
“We are proud of our country. We respect our flag,” Trump said during the September rally. “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. He is fired. He’s fired!'”
