They\u2019re all useful idiots.<\/p>\n
That must have been Roger Goodell\u2019s opinion of typical NFL fans as he force-fed them Bad Bunny\u2019s Super Bowl halftime show<\/a> \u2014 a seamy spectacle that made parents cringe and would make a lefty college professor proud.<\/p>\n And the NFL commissioner may have a point. The typical NFL fan \u2014 who skews right of center politically, a male and often a Trump voter \u2014 appears to be a glutton for left-wing punishment.<\/p>\n In fact, the Bad Bunny fiasco appears to be symptomatic of the NFL\u2019s broader, cynical business wager: It believes all those working-class white dudes who voted for Trump \u2014 those useful idiots \u2014 will put up with a lot of BS because they are hooked on football like an drug addict on heroin.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Goodell and his team of marketers are using them as they pump out woke messaging to diversify their fan base into something far different. As one sports executive put it: \u201cGoodell believes he has to expand his demographic and he\u2019s doing it with all this woke stuff. It\u2019s all about money for him.\u201d<\/p>\n Expanding is good since all business is about addition, not subtraction. But going there with left-wing agitprop has proven to be risky at best. Bud Light wanted to move away from cowboys and construction workers as its core customers, so it offered up a commercial featuring a trans woman activist sipping a cold one nearly naked in a bubble bath. The result: The No. 1-selling beer fell to No. 3 and never recovered.<\/p>\n \t\t\tMore From\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCharles Gasparino<\/p>\n Cheap-chic retailer Target long catered to broad swaths of middle America. That\u2019s until it turned to endless celebrations of LBTGQ+ pride where mothers shopping with their little ones in strollers had to wade through displays of intersectional clothing even for children, not to mention the \u201ctuck-friendly\u201d bathing suits<\/a>. Business tanked.<\/p>\n Every company listed above (and there are countless others that I cite in my book \u201cGo Woke Go Broke: The Inside Story of the Radicalization of Corporate America\u201d) backed away from wokeness after a consumer backlash. That the NFL ignores all of the above tells you something about its cynical business model and the loyalty to a fault of its current fan base.<\/p>\n Anti-Trump messaging<\/p>\n