Sometimes, comments on a hot-button topic come from obvious people speaking on obvious platforms — like the Commissioner at a press conference. Sometimes, they emerge unexpectedly.
This week, Cowboys chief brand officer and co-owner Charlotte Jones shared her views on the selection of Bad Bunny as the Super Bowl halftime performer, while appearing on the podcast of Katie Miller (the wife of homeland security advisor Stephen Miller).
“I think it’s awesome,” Jones said. “And I think our Latina fan base is amazing. And I think when you think about the Super Bowl, you want the No. 1 performer in the world to be there. We’re on a global stage, and we can’t ever forget that. Our game goes out to everybody around the world, and to get the premier entertainer to want to be a part of our game, I think is amazing. And I think that we have a mixed culture. I mean, our whole society is based on immigrants that have come here and founded our country. And I think we can celebrate that. And I think the show’s gonna be amazing.”
Katie Miller then posed this slightly loaded follow-up question: “You don’t think at a time when his comments were divisive as it relates to President Trump, when everyone’s just seeking this political unification that you’d want somebody who maybe didn’t touch politics to be on that stage?”
“Yeah, I don’t think our game’s about politics,” Jones said. “I don’t think people tune in to look at politics. We do everything we can to avoid politics. And I think in that moment that people will be watching the game, they’ll be celebrating music, and nobody will be thinking about what’s comments on the left side, what comments on the right side, that this is about bringing people together.”
She’s right. The NFL doesn’t try to get political. Sometimes, politics is foisted upon the NFL. When that happens, the NFL often chooses not to anger the more vocal minority at one end of the spectrum at the risk of alienating the less vocal minority at the other end of the spectrum. Especially in light of the overall demographics of the NFL’s fan base.
That’s what makes the NFL’s decision to poke the bear on this one surprising, but admirable. The league knew what the reaction would be. The league knew the choice was being made at a time when the NFL is relying upon the current administration to eventually give its blessing to a deal that would give the league a 10-percent stake in ESPN.
A safer choice could have been made. One that would have angered no one. The league opted for the biggest performer it could get (especially with Taylor Swift reportedly declining to agree to the NFL’s terms).
And there’s one last point to make (beyond, for instance, raising the question of why Jones invited Katie Miller to Dallas for her podcast in the first place or making the point that Bad Bunny is not an “immigrant”). Katie Miller actually said, with a straight face, that “everyone is just seeking this political unification.”
Sorry, but that’s bullshit. On both sides. They (right and left, and left and right) want us to be divided. They strive to keep us divided. Anything and everything, on both sides, becomes the basis for algorithm-driving outrage and counter-outrage.
Unity doesn’t feed that beast. Division does. And, unfortunately, it has worked. Well. Friendships have been destroyed over it. Family relationships have been strained, if not fractured beyond repair. All because they (the politicians and the social-media moguls) have figured out that establishing and maintaining unhealthy, and un-American, division is very good for business.
Ultimately, the NFL made a business decision. Whether it was aimed at having the biggest audience during the Super Bowl halftime show or whether it was calculated to throw a shovelful of coal into the outrage and counter-outrage furnace isn’t clear.
Still, the last people who should be waving the flag of political unification are one of the engineers of the Division Express.
