With the sudden increase of protests this season, NFL owners can’t help but wonder how it will affect their teams’ finances. Players kneeling during the national anthem displeases many fans and even some major sponsors.
Nonetheless, 49ers CEO Jed York told Tolbert & Lund Thursday afternoon that any displeasure from the fans and sponsors might be coming from somewhere else.
“I mean, we’ve definitely heard some of that from some people,” York said when asked about how these protests have affected the 49ers. “But I’ll say in full honesty, our bottom line has been hurt much more by bad coaching hires and decisions by me than anything that has happened here.”
York took over ownership of the 49ers in 2009, serving as both president and CEO through 2011. In the first two years of York’s tenure as owner, the 49ers went 8-8 in 2009 and then 6-10 the following year. Eventually, the 49ers worked out of their slump and made three playoff runs from 2011-2013, including a Super Bowl appearance where San Francisco lost to the Baltimore Ravens 34-31.
In the three years since the 49ers’ most recent playoff appearance, York played a hand in hiring three different head coaches–Jim Tomsula, Chip Kelly and now Kyle Shanahan. During that span of the time, the 49ers have failed to win more than eight games and are coming off a 2-14 record last season, the same year Colin Kaepernick began protesting during the national anthem.
What started when Kaepernick sat during the national anthem has led to countless players following in his footsteps and kneeling as a form of protest. It’s now an issue that headlines recent news in the NFL, pushing normal football topics to the backseat.
“But I feel like a lot of people look to football, look to Sundays for three hours of escape from everything else,” York said. “I respect where those fans are coming from and they just want to get back to ball and a lot of people want to get back to ball.”
Although, as York said, many fans want to “get back to ball,” for the 49ers there is not much football to get back to. There are some fans who believe York’s poor decisions as CEO put the 49ers in a dire position that even these protests can’t overshadow.
To listen to the full interview check out the podcast below, and skip to 11:26 for York on the 49ers.