“Hull down” is a sailor’s term for a ship sighted on the horizon with only its masts or superstructure visible because of the curvature of the Earth. It is difficult to identify at that point, or even to determine its real nature or to tell whether it represents a threat or not.
It is a good description of the NFL football players’ protest as it stands now. For the most part it is on the periphery of public consciousness, existing primarily on the sports pages and amongst professional football enthusiasts. Significantly, its real nature is still not clearly visible.
If we change our line of sight, though, we can get a more complete look at a hull down sighting; that is why sailing ships would send their lookouts high up into the rigging. Sometimes economics, because of its ties to law, markets, and individual behavior, can give us that kind of sight line.
What we can see from that perspective is that the protest is the leading edge of a conflict over who controls the workplace: the owners or the players.
It is not a direct, head-to-head conflict because both groups are represented by organizations — the owners by the National Football League and the players by its union, the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA), respectively. And, not surprisingly, the confrontation has been accompanied by alternate themes of racism and patriotism.
There is enough diversity of opinion within the owners and the players groups that some players, and even some owners, do not believe that their views have been represented in the latest edict from the NFL. That kind of diversity is typical of a “hull down” issue but it usually disappears as the underlying dispute is revealed and distilled into a finished product.
The current dispute is clearly not an economic issue, at least not in the classic sense of wage dispute. That could be a recognition that NFL players are already paid handsomely, and already receive portions of the league’s net revenue.
The racism issue is more difficult to pin down and, therefore, to assess. Again, it is not a racial confrontation of the classic type of the past, where bias had kept non-whites from jobs. In the current case, black players constitute a majority in NFL football, not a minority.
Professional football in its present form is as close to a meritocracy as we are likely to see in real life. That kind of organization, though, coupled with a black majority of players, would seem to suggest a lack of racism rather than evidence of its existence.
Instead, the NFL’s meritocracy would suggest that the main driver of the protest has its causes and objectives in something outside of the league and outside of football entirely.
That presents some problems in predicting how the labor dispute will be resolved. As it currently stands, the players argument has two key elements, or charges, only one of which the NFL has any capability to affect, let alone resolve.
The charge within the league is that quarterback Colin Kaepernick has been “blacklisted” for his refusing to stand during the playing of the national anthem. It is not clear whether this part of the protest will last long or fade away as Kaepernick’s value as a player diminishes. If it disappears for lack of interest, the NFL will not have to deal with it or the problem of proving that something didn’t happen.
The other element of the players’ discontent involves allegations of police mistreatment of blacks in our society. About this the NFL can do little or nothing that would not potentially alienate its audience — and revenue source. The protests during the national anthem have already had a negative effect on television fan numbers, with poll results showing that a substantial majority of fans do not agree with the protests by players.
As if we needed a further complication, the NFL owes its existence and its prosperity to the U.S. government. Prior to the 1960s, despite player salaries of next to nothing, the biggest problem of professional football was solvency.
In 1961 President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order allowing professional football to be organized as a non-profit, non-taxed entity. Thirty years later, Congress exempted the NFL from anti-trust laws so that the league it could better negotiate television contracts. Because of these past government gifts, if the NFL, the owners, and the players cannot resolve their differences, it is quite possible that the issue will end up in Washington political world known as the Swamp.
What is driving the protest long-term is not so much a political protest but the players’ wanting greater control of their workplace, and, ultimately, of their brief careers. Wouldn’t we all.
James McCusker is a Bothell economist, educator and consultant.
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