It's just all part of the show … By Mike Burke "Why do they keep showing this?" That was the most overheard question at the beginning of each #NFLTheTVShow presentation last Sunday afternoon during the reconvening of our weekly – okay, daily -- Tavern Mensa session. It was finally football season again, such as it may or may not end up being, and all the lads in attendance carried an extra giddy-up to their step. This was, after all, our first full-fledged meeting since #NFLTheTVShow closed the curtain on yet another hit season to rave reviews and ratings way back in February with its annual season-finale, which, I understand, some people like to call … the Super Bowl? There wasn't a care to be had. After all, the reach of the Monday morning alarm clock was still a good 15 to 18 hours away for those currently fortunate enough to still have to answer it, and all the boys were together once more to revel in each other's company, as well as our lies (that grow in scale with each new swig of hops) and to watch football all day long. Our world's troubles had been left at the door. Yet, somehow, they found their way all at once to the dozen television screens hanging in our Mensa hall, as those annoying networks persisted on showing us members of competing teams joining forces to protest racial injustices in the United States with their various forms of unified and personal demonstration. The demonstrations had begun on Thursday night when the Houston Texans remained in their locker room for the playing of the national anthem before their game with Kansas City, a form of demonstration that was repeated by a number of NFL teams on Sunday. Players who chose to demonstrate on the field during the national anthem took knees, raised fists and locked arms with teammates and opponents alike. There were many methods of protest on display over the weekend, and that's what seemed to bother a select number of viewers from our little peanut gallery the most – that they were on display. "Why are the networks showing this? Politics has no place in sports!" Politics has no place in sports? Where have you been picking up your mail for the past century, Never Never Land? Politics has been the core fabric of sports – organized sports – since the beginning of time, starting with the original Olympic Games nearly 3,000 years ago which were held as a religious festival in honor of Zeus, the king of the gods. (Not long before Budweiser became the King of Beers.) I mean, what's ever been more political than religion? Then throw in some organized sports and some know-it-all parents and you might as well just stage a convention. Just since the beginning of the 20th century, we've had the politics of Jack Johnson, Jim Thorpe, the Black Sox, the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Jackie Robinson, The Cleveland Summit and Muhammad Ali, the 1968 Summer Olympics, the 1972 Munich Olympics and haven't stopped since. Nor will we. For as Washington Nationals relief pitcher Sean Doolittle said in March, "Sports are the reward of a functioning society." Just how functioning our society stands at the moment is a matter of debate, but that politics and sports are intertwined has remained a constant and continues to stand the test of time. This is nothing new. The only difference this time around is it's being tolerated; actually, sanctioned and mass produced by the National Football League, which suddenly is wearing its new-found social justice on its shield as though it had been there for centuries. Aside from the fact that the demonstrations are the news of the day – not the entertainment of the day for a functioning society – the networks are showing them because #NFLTheTVShow is their meal ticket and the NFL has sold out to the movement at hand, having five days ago launched its new brand campaign (what do you know?), "It Takes All Of Us." Unless, of course, your name is Colin Kaepernick or Eric Reid. That's right, Commissioner Roger Goodell and his 32 bosses are suddenly on board and, certainly, it's not a bad thing that they're on board, even if most of their cold black hearts aren't really into being on board. What the NFL is on board with is the brand – any brand, as long as it sells. They've done a 180 turn because they have no choice but to go with the brand of the players, because it is the brand of the athlete these days that sells; not the brand of the league, or even a particular team. The heavily coveted young market – the same market Weasel Rob Manfred claims he is trying to destroy the game of baseball for – follows players first and the brand they promote and the products they sell. It's no longer about the team with the current market – the way the Pittsburgh Steelers, Oakland Raiders and L.A. Lakers were in the '70s and '80s, for instance. The team stuff will come once the player is determined – Jordan, Kobe, LeBron, Tom Brady. Players don't stay in one place any more for their entire careers. There's too much money to be had wearing another team's stuff. And the NFL has finally caught on and, yes, Goodell admitted that, Gee whiz, maybe we should have listened to what "Kaep" was trying to tell us a few years ago. Goodell had his epiphany when he said he realized the "misrepresentation" of what Kaepernick and other players had been doing in their peaceful protests – "exercising their right to bring attention to something that needs to get fixed" – "gnawed" at him. Then that means he didn't understand what had been happening in communities around the country and he really was the privileged and stupid Country Club junior executive waiting in the wings for his turn at the corner office? No, Goodell understood. He just didn't want to see because he was afraid to cross Jerry Jones and the likes. But now the likes are following another brand, and there's their boy Goodell leading the parade. So now what's a little peaceful protest or two before each #NFLTheTVShow, particularly now that we've marketed our own brand for it? You don't like it? Look away. Because now it's all just part of the show. Mike Burke has been writing and covering sports since 1981. Write to him at [email protected], or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at @MikeBurkeMDT and listen to him, Matt Gilmore and Lydia Savramis on their "You Don't Know Jack" podcast. Follow "You Don't Know Jack" on Facebook as well.

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