NFL boycotts have reached fever pitch—and now, even DirecTV is offering refunds to former fans who are too livid to watch football.
DirecTV announced that it would offer total refunds to their Sunday Ticket customers, who want to cancel their service due to the NFL’s recent wave of disrespectful National Anthem protests.
The Sunday Ticket package—which allows DirecTV subscribers to watch any NFL game, rather than only the local game—costs $280 for the entire year, representing a significant amount of income for the beleaguered football league.
DirecTV, which doesn’t normally let their subscribers change plans in the middle of the football season, explained that they felt compelled to dish out refunds “due to the sensitivity of the issue.”
Last Sunday, more than 200 NFL players from the majority of teams refused to stand for the National Anthem—standing in protest to President Trump, who said that the “sons of b*tches” should be fired for disrespecting the nation.
Despite some NFL team owners joining their players on their knees, the backlash has been severe: the NFL ratings collapsed by 11% overnight, and a recent poll shows that 62% of Americans agree that with Trump that the NFL players should stand for the National Anthem.
With subscribers leaving in droves, and many teams struggling to fill their stadiums, it looks like Trump succeeded in making a stand for patriotism—by hitting the NFL right in the pocketbooks.