Roger Goodell thinks his reckless NFL antics will come without consequence — just see Bad Bunny

The NFL’s Risky Business Model: Going Woke While Ignoring Backlash

They’re all useful idiots.

That must have been Roger Goodell’s opinion of typical NFL fans as he force-fed them Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl halftime show — a seamy spectacle that made parents cringe and would make a lefty college professor proud.

And the NFL commissioner may have a point. The typical NFL fan — who skews right of center politically, a male and often a Trump voter — appears to be a glutton for left-wing punishment.

In fact, the Bad Bunny fiasco appears to be symptomatic of the NFL’s broader, cynical business wager: It believes all those working-class white dudes who voted for Trump — those useful idiots — will put up with a lot of BS because they are hooked on football like an drug addict on heroin.

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: “Goodell believes he has to expand his demographic and he’s doing it with all this woke stuff. It’s all about money for him.”

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.

Cheap-chic retailer Target long catered to broad swaths of middle America. That’s 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 “tuck-friendly” bathing suits. Business tanked.

Every company listed above 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.

Anti-Trump messaging

Consider: This year’s Super Bowl featured a rapper mumbling garbage in Spanish during a performance replete with crude dance numbers and anti-Trump messaging. And yet this multibillion-dollar operation has continued to crank out ever higher ratings and profits.

The big question is, how do the NFL and Goodell get away with it? Well, you won’t be surprised that people in the sports business world say the commissioner sees some holes in the logic of “go woke go broke.”

First, Goodell’s team of corporate bureaucrats believe they have the only game in town that offers the red-meat sports experience demanded by the average football fan. He loves the controlled brutality of the game; the feeling of being part of a team and fighting for something.

He’s hooked and stays hooked as the league has increased engagement through cynical ploys such as sports gambling. Yet in partnership with betting apps and sportsbooks, Goodell & Co. has supplied this opium to their masses, transforming what was once the simple pleasure of watching a game into an all consuming, addictive experience.

It’s Vegas on your iPhone and it continues to lure men, especially young men, hooked on a product that bombards them with progressive tropes.

While they’re hooked, the NFL is aggressively searching for its more diverse audience. That includes women, whom Goodell’s bean counters believe skew left of center and might support social-justice preaching. Will it work in the long term? Maybe — but maybe not.

Bad Bunny was originally touted to have a record audience at this year’s game. But the fact is that when he performed his leftist schtick, viewership declined sharply, paving the way for a weakened second half for ratings, according to Nielsen data.

All of which speaks to the fact that this long game isn’t over. Even if you’re the NFL, if you go woke, you might still end up broke.