Part 3: The Ghost of Baltimore Football Future
As Baltimore Ravens president Dick Cass recently pointed out in a letter to the club’s Personal Seat License holders and top financial supporters, the spaciousness of the team’s home games this season can certainly be traced back to a warm afternoon a continent away in London, England when a dozen players took The Wembley Knee during the National Anthem.
Or, on “foreign soil,” as so many patriots have stated on the internet. It’s unclear how many PSL owners are purposely keeping those seats empty as a boycott and how many just can’t resell or even give away the tickets for free as a gift.
The new “cool debate” during the holidays has been the loyal Ravens fans excited about a playoff berth and still going to the games fighting with the ones who used to go to the games about how any real, true-blooded American could possibly support the National Football League and these disrespectful black players who hate our military and The President.
That’s where we are in this debate entering 2018.
But you want me to “stick to sports,” right?
Let’s be clear about how the upper deck got empty and how the fan base got uppity: if Donald J. Trump didn’t go on the attack with NFL players and call them “sons of bitches,” The Wembley Knee wouldn’t exist nor would The Knee of 180 players of color that around the sport that day in September 2017.
No sane person should argue this point.
But, no matter the reason, rationale, politics, philosophy, patriotism or the color of your skin or theirs, the result has been quite eye-opening for anyone who has witnessed a home game for the Baltimore Ravens since The Wembley Knee and subsequent drubbing at the hands of the Jacksonville Jaguars in London back on September 24th.
Time will tell what the impact of The Wembley Knee will be in the coming years to season tickets and PSLs and their street value.
Time will also tell what real damage there will be to the franchise and how it rebounds from this political crisis that Steve Bisciotti never could’ve
