* By Jill Wagner*
As Colin Kaepernick’s new Nike ad continues to divide the country, one former NFL player says, in the end, sports will help reunite it.
Randal "Thrill" Hill played for the Miami Dolphins, the Phoenix / Arizona Cardinals, and the New Orleans Saints long before Kaepernick and other players started kneeling during the National Anthem to protest racial inequality.
So, is he worried that the Anthem controversy will permanently damage the league? Just the opposite.
Hill told Cheddar Big News, "When things go wrong in this country, the NFL and sports usually brings the country back together.”
Hill points to the days after the attacks on September 11th. Professional baseball was put on hold for six days. When the season resumed, the Mets played their archrival the Braves for the first major sporting event in New York after the attacks. Mets players wore NYPD and FDNY hats, Mike Piazza hit a home run, and for many people, it felt like things would actually be okay.
Then the Yankees made it to the World Series, and President Bush threw out the first pitch.
Hill also talked about the Miami riots during the 1980s, and how football helped bring the city together during those troubling times.
“The NFL usually brings ー and even Major League Baseball ー bring citizens of the United States together to cheer and have fun and to go out just have a great time watching a good event.”
It’s still not clear how history will judge Nike's new “Just Do It” ad, which aired during Thursday night’s NFL season opener. Former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick voices the commercial, telling the audience to "Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything."
The company’s stock price has dropped since Nike first revealed the new campaign and some critics have burned their sneakers. President Trump weighed in, tweeting, "Just like the NFL, whose ratings have gone WAY DOWN, Nike is getting absolutely killed with anger and boycotts.”
At the same time, many fans and professional athletes are showing their support, with the hashtag #JustDoIt trending on Twitter.
Fintech companies are taking notice of the rapid growth in esports, and Quicken Loans has partnered with 100 Thieves, a League of Legends expansion team. Quicken CMO Casey Hurbis said this venture opened the company's eyes to the endless possibilities of esports and its personalities.
The Twitter Esports Business Summit ran from Oct. 1-3, and it held its focus on the growing market of esports and how Twitter fits into the business. Rishi Chadha, head of gaming content partnerships at Twitter, said the company is focusing on the communities that foster players and fans, as well as publishers and developers of different platforms.
The team became the first in the NBA to introduce GIFs for the Facebook platform. Sandro Gasparro, director of social media for the Los Angeles Clippers, told Cheddar it's not just another way to promote engagement, but can also connect fans to players on a more personal level.
Ralf Reichert, CEO of ESL, sat down with Cheddar at this weekend's tournament at the Barclays Center and talked about the esports world and what he believes is needed for the enterprise to grow.
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Ron Darling, a former MLB starting pitcher and current TBS baseball analyst, said the easiest way to attract younger people to baseball is to get more kids playing it when they're kids. Darling said there are more children opting out of football due to concerns about head injuries, and those athletes should be primed to take up a different sport.
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18Birdies has seen success as a one-stop shop for golfers, both amateur and pro, gaining 1.3 million members since its launch. The app lets players book tee times, navigate a new course, and choose the right club. But CEO Eddy Lui says the main goal is to create a community ー a social network ー of golfers.
The blockchain has made its way into a slew of industries. Next at bat ー the sports world. The Los Angeles Dodgers are moving away from traditional promotions and have begun using crypto tokens to give away digital bobbleheads to fans. Ralph Esquibel, VP of information technology for the team, said this is the first giveaway of its kind and could lead to more experiments with cryptocurrencies.
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