Grüße und Vorstellung » orney who chairs the gam

NFL owners were busy handing out prizes at their meeting in Atlanta Russell Wilson Jersey , doling out Super Bowls to various cities and giving Nashville the 2019 draft.

Then they gave one to themselves: A new anthem policy adopted with the fervent hope that the protests sparked by Colin Kaepernick will go away and the golden goose that is the NFL will continue to soar untouched.

Stay in the locker room if you wish during the national anthem. But don’t even think about kneeling on the sideline where you can be seen.

This wasn’t an attempt to settle a real issue, not even close. This was strictly for self-preservation and to keep any protest off the TV cameras and away from the prying eyes of the current tenant of the White House.

And guess what? It just might work.

Not for the players, who will lose whatever rights they had left. But they’ve always been expendable anyway, in a league that for years stood by doing nothing as their brains were scrambled by hits on the field.

No, this one is for Jerry Jones and his fellow billionaires.

They’re the ones who want desperately to move any protests about social injustice to the locker room, where no one but the towel guy will notice. They’re the ones who called the new policy a compromise, yet made no real concessions to protesting players and didn’t even bother consulting the players’ union on the plan.

Their new rules are as simple as they are absolute: If you want to protest, do so by staying in the locker room during the national anthem.

Then get your rear out there and play a game.

Vice President Mike Pence was quick to cheer, sending out a tweet with the hashtag (hash)Winning. It was President Donald Trump himself who really put the heat on NFL owners last season by saying it was a disgrace to allow players to take a knee during the anthem.

Then as television ratings sank and sponsors started to get nervous, owners figured they had better move to protect their cash cow.

Meanwhile, players have little choice but to accept it – assuming they wish to remain employed.

”That’s their decision to make,” Redskins corner Josh Norman said. ”They’ve pretty much got the teams. They make those decisions. We just got to go through with it, I guess.”

Though the NFL was quick to triumph the fact the new policy passed by a unanimous vote, it’s clear some owners are not as comfortable with it as others. The Buffalo Bills issued a statement saying they would rather work closely with players on social issues than issue fines for kneeling during the anthem Shilique Calhoun Jersey , and the head of Kaepernick’s former team said his team abstained from the vote.

San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York went a step further by saying other measures might also be taken, including a suspension of all concession sales during the national anthem.

”If we want to be sacrosanct, if we want to honor the flag, we’ve got to make sure we go through a litany of things,” York said. ”We’re not going to force people to stand in their seats, but we’re certainly going to make sure we’re not profiting during that two or three minutes of time during the game.”

That, at least, is a step in the right direction. If players can’t kneel during the anthem, there’s no reason the beer guy should be able to keep pouring $12 brews.

Let’s just hope the anthem police have some sympathy for fans who might forget to take off their hats during the song.

So now the game will move on from who is kneeling on the sideline to who is in the locker room during the anthem. Fans and television cameras will scan the sidelines to see who is missing, and those who want to make political hay of it on either side will duly take note.

In the long run, though, the issue will likely fade away, just like NFL owners want it to. And that may not be such a bad thing, since the original purpose of highlighting social injustice has become twisted instead into a debate over the patriotism of NFL players.

Most of them are very patriotic indeed Chris Ivory Jersey , just like most of the fans who watch them. They also have the right to speak up and protest outside their workplace, just like the fans who watch them.

But the bottom line is that NFL owners have every right to protect their business. They pay the salaries, and they decide the rules.

Now everyone else can decide whether they want to keep playing along.

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Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org or The Surpeme Court struck down a 26-year-old federal ban on sports betting on Monday, allowing states to decide whether they want to allow legal wagers on football, basketball, baseball, hockey and other games. Here’s a look at what that means:

SO, WHEN CAN I BET ON SPORTS?

Soon, depending on where you live. Officials in three states – Delaware, Mississippi and New Jersey – have pledged to start accepting legal bets within weeks. Three others already had laws on the books authorizing sports betting in the event of a favorable Supreme Court decision, although there likely will be more debate about the specifics. More than a dozen other states either have active legislation to authorize sports gambling or have considered it in the past. Expect those discussions to ramp up, along with more aggressive lobbying in those states by sports book operators and the professional leagues.

WHO WILL ACCEPT BETS?

It will vary from state to state. Some have authorized commercial casinos to open sports books, while some will offer sports betting products through their state lotteries. Aside from the few states that have worked out those details already, lawmakers and regulators will be deciding whether to allow bets to be placed at casinos LeSean McCoy Jersey , horse racing tracks, off-track betting parlors or even stadiums, and whether to allow online and mobile betting.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE LEAGUES?

The four major U.S. professional leagues and the NCAA spent years fighting New Jersey’s challenge to the constitutionality of the federal ban. Nonetheless, the commissioners of the NBA and Major League Baseball have both said they’re open to the prospect of legal gambling – on their terms. The NBA and MLB have been lobbying states to give a small percentage of the amount wagered back to the league offices. They say they deserve a cut because gambling is entirely dependent on their business, and they need to spend more money to guard against potentially devastating game-fixing scandals. Casino interests argue that Nevada does just fine regulating gambling and flagging suspicious behavior without sending money directly to the leagues.

The NFL, the nation’s most popular spectator sport, will have to reckon with its longstanding opposition to gambling, which many critics say is hypocritical because the league encourages fantasy sports, publishes detailed injury reports that help bookies set odds and schedules several games every season in London, where in-stadium betting is legal. League owners also approved the Raiders moving to Las Vegas, gambling’s mecca in the United States. With the fight against expanded gambling lost for now, the NFL could use its powerful lobbying muscle to partner with the NBA and MLB and seek new federal regulations.

Gambling proponents argue that the leagues will benefit through sponsorships and other tie-ins with sports book operators and enhanced fan interest in their games.

”I think everybody who owns top-four professional sports team just basically saw the value of their team double at least,” Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban told CNBC on Monday.

HOW WILL THIS CHANGE THE FAN EXPERIENCE?

Once sports betting becomes more widely legal, fans can expect to have the opportunity to bet on their phones during games Aaron Jones Jersey , a common practice in countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia. Television ratings and subscriptions to streaming services could increase because fans are more interested in games that don’t involve their hometown teams. And discussion of point spreads, over/unders and prop bets could become more common among broadcasters and journalists as they seek to remain relevant to how fans are thinking about sports.

WILL ILLEGAL BOOKIES GO OUT OF BUSINESS?

Probably not, said Kate Lowenhar-Fisher, a Las Vegas-based attorney who chairs the gaming practice at Dickinson Wright. Illegal bookies have longstanding relationships with their customers, some of whom prefer the anonymity of gambling offshore, and they don’t have to pay taxes or fees. Plus, with states legalizing sports betting in a piecemeal fashion, illegal operators will continue to be more convenient for many bettors.

Savvy businesspeople are also likely to create new gambling products that aren’t specifically addressed by state laws, just as daily fantasy sports companies did while the federal ban was in place.

”Americans will continue to be entrepreneurial, especially finding a way to evade all the compliance costs, tax costs, regulatory costs,” Lowenhar-Fisher said. ”That’s exactly what the fantasy sports operators tried to do – offer sports betting without having to deal with all the things a sports book operator has to deal with.”

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