The President wants a favor from the NFL, unrelated to avoiding an international incident with Russia. The NFL has told him nyet.
According to the Washington Post, the league won’t be assisting with the promotion of Obamacare. The administration had asked the NFL and other sports leagues to help increase awareness of the details of the law, which sooner enters a new phase of its implementation.
“We have responded to the letters we received from members of Congress to inform them we currently have no plans to engage in this area and have had no substantive contact with the administration about [the health-care law’s] implementation,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told the Post. (That’s a long, drawn-out way of saying, “We’re staying out of this.”)
The decision comes in response to efforts from members of Congress to persuade sports organizations to remain, yes, on the sidelines.
“It is difficult to understand why an organization like yours would risk damaging its inclusive and apolitical brand by lending its name to its promotion,” Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senator John Cornyn (R-Tex.) said in a letter to the NFL, the NBA, MLB, the NHL, NASCAR, and the PGA.
Hopefully, the NFL extracted in return for its decision not to promote Obamacare a promise from Republicans to leave the league alone on topics like stripping the NFL of its tax-exempt status and banning blackouts of games at publicly-funded stadiums. (Dolphins owner Stephen Ross also would appreciate it if the party disowns Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford.)