How the NFL can make a positive impact on climate change

The NFL has the power to make an enormous positive impact on climate change. But getting there may mean forcing owners to change their business.

The National Football league is not a champion for social justice and progressive action. After a long work week and with another ahead, the last thing most football fans want to think about is how to make the world a better place. Most would rather see massive men run into each other. I can’t say I blame them. Sports are often an escape and the league seems to have leaned heavily into that positioning.

Sports are also a business, and as we reach the end of living on a habitable planet, it is up to politicians and the powers that be to alter the course we are on. No matter what side of the aisle you fall on, it should be pretty clear that those in office will do little to make any meaningful change unless they are pressured heavily. The climate issue is no different.

Enter the NFL. The National Football League has an annual revenue of almost $16 billion. The combined value of every franchise is roughly $1.06 trillion. That’s $1,060,000,000,000, in case you wanted to visualize it with all the zeroes.

I’m not saying the burden of saving the Earth falls on NFL owners, but I am suggesting they start to do their part. SoFi stadium, home of the LA Rams since 2020, does not use conventional heating and cooling and recycles water, but it is still a massive construction project that was ultimately unnecessary and had costly environmental effects.

Stadium development, air travel for teams, food waste at games, and the maintenance of facilities are all rather obvious negatives in regards to the climate, but in the National Football League, it goes deeper than that.

Many NFL owners made fortunes in industries that contributed to our climate crisis

Roger Goodell is not the most powerful man in the league. He isn’t even close. The owners of the most expensive teams are. Stan Kroenke owns several professional sports teams, including the Los Angeles Rams, which is valued at $4.8 billion. He amassed his fortune in real estate, wineries, and cattle ranching. He owns the ninth most land of any private citizen in the country, and his ranches and wine ventures have caused irreversible damage to the watersheds.

Robert Kraft owns the New England Patriots, and on top of being a scummy person, he made his money in paper and packaging. Plastic packaging is one of the single most common waste items found in the ocean, immediately after fishing nets and other equipment.

Kraft and Kroenke, despite being worth a combined $20 billion, are still small players compared to the queen mother. Jerry Jones has a net worth of $11 billion, and more than half of that is tied up in the Dallas Cowboys. America’s team, if you will. Jones got most of his money drilling for natural oil and gas in Arkansas, which was, in simple terms, bad for the environment.

Jones has donated to former President Donald Trump, who made drilling for oil on protected Alaska land easier. Jones has chipped into Chris Christie’s 2016 campaign, and the former governor is very much against the Paris Climate Accords. Jones has donated to several smaller Republican names, all of which have been anti-climate action.

In Jones’ eyes, I’m sure he doesn’t care much for climate action. He made his fortune on oil prospecting and drilling, and let’s face it: he won’t be around much longer, so if Earth only has 25 years left he won’t be around to see it. His Cowboys seem to be the most important thing in the world to him, and as long as Dallas is winning he will continue to pump money into his machine.

This is where the fan comes in. Even if you disagree with the NFL’s approach to Black Lives Matter, Colin Kaepernick, Carl Nassib coming out as gay, or the military propaganda advertised at NFL games, we can all agree that we like Earth as is and don’t want things to get worse. We can also agree that finding joy in Texans freezing to death is horrific, but Comstock Resources (a natural gas company in which Jones owns a controlling stake) seemed to see last year’s crisis as an opportunity.

Unfortunately, the power of any single fan is limited. A boycott large enough to really make a dent seems unlikely. If that were a possibility, it would have happened a while ago. Not enough people will stop cheering for their team just because the team is owned by a scumbag. Counting on Roger Goodell to influence change seems equally as unwise. But fans can begin to use their voices to let the league know that they want changes.

The NFL is not a publicly-traded company, but it would be somewhere around the 30th largest corporation in the nation. With that power comes some degree of responsibility. As a role model to millions (hundreds of millions?) of people, the league must offer some guidance and clarity as we approach the point of no return. It is clear that the powers that be will not take action, as it is not in their interests, so the NFL as a whole must do what it can. Ideally, this action would come without fan pressure, but realistically, fan involvement must happen.

Unfortunately, the broadcast contracts the NFL has with Amazon, Fox, CBS, ESPN, NBC, and ABC will not be expiring in any near future, so the league can’t levy power there. They do, however, have six years before Nike’s deal manufacturing official NFL gear and jerseys is done.

Nike has shown before that they are willing to take a progressive stand. They aired commercials starring Colin Kaepernick, and they removed the Washington Redskin’s jersey from their official store in protest of the racist name. When the deal is up in 2028, the NFL can shop around for the most environmentally conscious clothing brand to strike a new deal with. Perhaps fans can lobby Nike executives to take a solid stance on climate change, which could help force the league’s hand.

The same goes for Microsoft. Have you ever seen anyone other than a football coach using a Microsoft Surface tablet? No, because an iPad is better and the same price. If the NFL signed a new tech deal with Samsung, Apple, or LG, for example, the Surface would become a relic of early-2010s handheld technology. Microsoft wouldn’t go under, but they would feel the hit. The league’s new tech deal could have some real climate ramifications if done right. In addition to that, NFL fans looking for new devices could do some market research and see what companies take solid action on the climate crisis and shop from them, despite Microsoft currently receiving a ringing endorsement from the league.

The NFL is one of the hundreds of companies owned by rich men who need to take drastic action, now. It is not a climate-friendly company and it would be hard for them to take action, but football is about doing hard things. The responsibility should not fall on the fans, it should fall on those who actually have power. Unfortunately, the rich and powerful will not change, so the league, or the fans, needs to force them to. This is the richest, most valuable, and most expensive sporting league in the world run by some of the most powerful men alive, but they refuse to take a stand.

The responsibility should not fall on fans, but ultimately, it will at the end of the day. This is unfair, as the average NFL fan is not rich or powerful, but as the consumers of the product, they need to be open to their role as a customer. Fans probably will not boycott the NFL entirely, but they can pick and choose how they demand action. For example, if you believe the NFL should ink a TV deal with environmental provisions, watch the game at a bar or in person where you are not paying for cable. If you think attacking the problem with gear and apparel is the proper course of action, buy t-shirts for your team at a thrift shop.

I will not tell anyone to stop watching the game they love or stop cheering for their favorite team, but at the end of the day, the NFL and owners have shown time and time again they are not going to act unless it hurts their checkbooks. The biggest way for fans to get what they want is to avoid the league entirely, but small, calculated steps could also bring about positive change.