Media, Society

NFL Logo No Longer Shown On NFL Sponsor Papa John’s Website

By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

After the recent controversy involving NFL players kneeling before the National Anthem at the beginning football games, long time NFL sponsor Papa John’s Pizza no longer displays the NFL Logo or indications of sponsorship on its official website.

While no reference as to the reasons given has been made readily publicly available, there exists the possibility the company might be having at least reservations with presently displaying a logo engendering increasing disfavor with large segments of its customer base.

Papa John’s once branded itself as the Official Pizza of the NFL.

I have been loosely following reactions to NFL sponsors in light of the recent controversy and how the backlash is affecting the NFL’s brand and image. Discovering that Papa John’s Pizza has for several years been in sponsorship with the NFL, I connected to the company’s website to see if the site continued the NFL’s promotion.

The site did not show an NFL partnership yet did indicate the company’s sponsorship of Visa with a promotion for “Visa Checkout” and another with Major League Baseball with their “Papa Slam” offer.

Using the web archiving service Wayback Machine via its database for papajohns.com a sampling of dates from late July to September 19th prominently displays the NFL logo and the words “Official pizza sponsor of the NFL”. Again, this is not present in today’s website version or those since last Wednesday when I began my inquiry.

Here are comparative images between the two timeframes:

Former Webpage Screenshot
Current (09/29/2017)

I considered the possibility the omission of NFL references was a miscommunication or technical issue but I doubt this. Why would an official sponsor, who at significant cost and effort, remove a prominent sports sponsor from its official website during the league’s season? It is curious at least, especially given the money involved. In my opinion if the removal was intentional perhaps the relationship between the two chilled or the company might be hanging low until the controversy mostly subsides.

Turning to the social media website Twitter, references to the NFL recently received a strong rebuke through a hot flaming by users. One recent reference to the Denver Broncos by Papa John’s received sixty “likes” and 151 replies, nearly all of which were protests to the NFL partnership with Papa John’s or criticism of the NFL and its players.

If the absence of NFL logos and references to Papa John’s sponsorship is not something otherwise, it could be indicative of the current fallout among sponsors through an expensive breaking with the NFL. This certainly could plague the league if a chief revenue source continues to regard an association with the NFL as bad for business.

By Darren Smith

The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility.

94 thoughts on “NFL Logo No Longer Shown On NFL Sponsor Papa John’s Website”

  1. CV Brown – well, my team lost yesterday, so that was disappointing, but not surprising. I did expect them to lose, the question was by how much. I didn’t even record the game, just in case they won. Who cares what the Arizona Cardinals are doing? They are interlopers. I did see there is supposedly a memo from Goodell that all players and coaches are to stand for the National Anthem. If it is true, it is about time. It is in the manual and their contracts.

  2. Apparently Dish Network is fully refunding their NFL packages no questions asked. I spoke to a co worker the other day that called to cancel hers and the cs rep said she was the 20th one that day.

  5. It takes a company, with a name like, Papa John’s, to show the other corporate sponsors what it means to not be such a pu$$y in the face of despicable and abhorrent behavior. If these big, fat, ignorant, uneducated, ungrateful and brain dead useless pieces of overpaid meat want to show their disrespect towards our country, by kneeling during the anthem, and the cowardly and quivering owners don’t have the b@lls to do something about it, thank God there are still some corporations willing to put their beliefs and values on the line in support of this great nation and what that anthem truly represents. Trump was correct. These owners should have the guts to tell these SOBS to get off of the field and fire their sorry massive a$$es. I never buy pizza made by anyone other than the local mom and pop pizzeria; however, tonight I will order one from Papa John’s. All the toppings.

  6. Papa John’s has a pizza business to run. They are not in the business of politics. Getting embroiled in a scandal where football players chose to use their time on the field to disrespect the country could hurt them either way. If they support the players protesting the national anthem, they will lose customers. If they do not support the players, they will lose customers. It’s a lose-lose situation for a company, and another example of how politics have infiltrated so many parts of our lives, to our detriment. You can’t even sponsor the NFL, apparently, without getting caught up in politics. Doesn’t sound like a good deal to future sponsors, frankly.

    I would not be surprised if Papa John’s quietly does not renew its sponsorship. NFL ratings have been on the decline, anyway. Considering the cost of sponsorship is remarkably expensive, they are not getting a good return. Add scandal in and that return is further damaged. They might not drop them immediately, which would be taking a political stand and run the risk of alienating customers. But they may very well remove logos and advertising, and just not renew.

    It’s not a good deal for Papa John’s, or any other sponsor that does not depend solely on Liberal patrons.

    Do these kneeling players think about how their actions affect others? When NFL ratings go down, how does that affect the thousands of people who are employed through the NFL? NFL ratings were already declining. Was further risking viewership the best use of their time while on the job? When sponsors face backlash from customers, and lose business, how many people’s jobs are affected? In short, did kneeling during the anthem, a recognizable insult to our own, or any other country’s anthem, improve other people’s lives or cause more harm? Maybe they should think harder next time before they bring personal, divisive politics to the workplace.

    “According to Chief Operating Officer and Papa John’s International Inc. president Steve Ritchie, National Football League ratings over the last season played a major role in weakening sales.

    “We’ve seen ratings down 8 percent for the season,” Ritchie said during an earnings call Wednesday. “We’ve made a significant investment in the NFL. An 8-percent decline in ratings played a small factor in some of our performance.””

    1. Every single sponsor of the NFL has been under political scrutiny. Restaurants, shoe manufacturers, and other businesses are now in political soup.

      All of these players are thoughtless to have negatively impacted businesses who give their hard earned money to help make the NFL successful, and make these players rich. Way to bite the hand that feeds you.

      Next time, they should talk politics on their own time and not bring their employer’s or sponsor’s names into it.

          1. Verizon sponsors the NFL. No sponsors are in da soup. That was yesterday’s fake news. Today’s fake new is T rump is making Puerto Rico beautiful again.

            1. Ken – you may think that, but you would be wrong:

              https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/08/23/colin-kaepernick-supporters-rally-nfl-headquarters

              Activist held a rally seeking to protect football players right to address social justice issues on the field. They also targeted sponsors, including Verizon, pressuring them to support the players by threatening to pull their advertising.

              “The organizers also targeted Verizon, one of the NFL’s largest sponsors. When Linda Sarsour, another co-organizer of the 2017 Women’s March, took the stage, she read off a phone number to the crowd—the number, presumably, for a customer service liaison at the company—and instructed everyone to call. Sarsour also requested that people tweet at Verizon.

              “Ask Verizon … are you going to stand with Kaepernick? Are you going to stand with black people? Brown people? We want Verizon to take a stand and tell us what side they’re on.” The goal, it seemed was to pressure Verizon into pulling its money out of advertising with the NFL. “They only speak one language,” Sarsour said to the crowd, referring to the NFL execs upstairs, “and the language is money.””

              Customers are threatening companies for sponsoring the NFL, for supporting kneeling players, and for not supporting kneeling players. All of a sudden, non political companies are in the middle of a political argument.

              Unless their customers are exclusively conservative or exclusively Liberal, they lose customers if they take a stand.

              Political soup.

              1. Not even one sponsor has quit because some of Trump’s biddies have their knickers in a twist over black men kneeling.

            1. TBob.

              This is a vast problem in many large cities. The news mostly ignores it but it is true. It comes down to this. A motivated and supported police department tends to be pro-active in suppressing crime. A demoralized department has employees who simply answer calls and do the minimum enforcement action. Their pay is the same either way. In fact, the profession is one where being more proactive mandates much more work in the form of having to testify in court, arrest suspects, gather evidence and everything. Just answering calls is simply reacting to crime. It does not deter crime as much. But as long as liberals keep trashing the police at every possible opportunity the overall crime that average people will be victimized by will inevitably increase. But in most respects, the elitist liberals do not live in high crime neighborhoods, so they can arm chair quarterback policing a community and virtue signal how they are these enlightened saints. As soon as the criminal element infests their neighborhood they will scream bloody murder that the police are doing nothing.

              1. Whatever you refer to as a “liberal” is unclear; especially since Pravda Faux News has muddled whatever the word used to refer to. However, if you are referring to citizens who are exercising their constitutionally-protected rights to petition their government and/or protest the actions of public servants who operate in their name, then I am very sorry for whichever professor presided over your 1L ConLaw class. You missed something.

                This is to “but badges taste good when you lick them just right” Darren

  10. Those who waste their time watching spectator sports also ruin their health eating pizza. Same mentality.

    1. Chris Bacon – I watch college football and eat pizza, although rarely at the same time. Pizza is the food of the gods.

  11. They are still advertising on local TV for their pizza special whenever the Colts win (and presumably the teams in other markets).

    1. Don’t be surprised if BLM demands a return to segregation in schools and colleges.

  13. Papa John’s owner has long been known as a right wing racist homophobic Trump ass licking prick. I stopped eating their pizzas many years ago. I kneel with the players and for those of you that don’t understand the 1st Amendment, go to school, elementary school. This has nothing to do with the anthem, the GI’s, the Vets, the flag, etc. It is about equality and stopping the killing. Damn, learn something sometime right wingers.

    USMC Sgt-Vietnam 1966/67

    1. Well said! when it has benefited himself, papa johns owner John Shitter has fought against healthcare and appeared with NFL players on commercials. Now when it is about real American constitutional values, all can see whose side he really stands on. besides – what sort of dummy would eat their garbage pizza or any chain restaurant pizza for that matter. Supporting local pizzeria’s does more for any local community and for the country in general.

      As for the entire “patriotic” situation, there is nothing more disrespectful then flying the a flag of the worst traitors and terrorists in American history. That flag is the confederate flag. And that is the flag that should be associated with un-American and unpatriotic values. And any business owner flying the confederate flag, and any patron supporting those traitors, should be receiving the real anger of Americans.

      1. Hopefully, college players will start protesting too and Papa Asshat will take his name of the Card’s stadium.
        He is to Louisville as Jerry Jones is to Dallas. Wealthy narcissists.

      2. Well said! when it has benefited himself, papa johns owner John Shitter has fought against healthcare

        Papa John’s is owned by a militant Christian Science adherent?

    2. sgtsabai – if they were taking a knee to stop the black-on-black killing which is 5 times that of cops killing blacks, then I would be with you. However, there is an NFL manual which requires that they stand for the National Anthem or be fined. Since neither the teams nor Goodell has taken the manual to heart, I see no reason to stand, kneel or sit with them. They are focusing on the wrong thing.

      1. Assuming momentarily that your Pravda Faux stats are correct, how does that have anything to do with governmental actors killing fellow citizens with impunity? Can you see the difference between citizens killing others and facing justice, and police officers killing citizens and facing nothing?

        This is to “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that” paulie

        1. You are assuming there is nothing happening to the cops, but several have been put on trial, several have left the force after review boards. On the other hand, you are also assuming those murders in Chicago are being solved and the killers sent to prison. That is a false assumption.

          This is to “I didn’t think that far out of the box” Markety Mark Mark.

      2. which is 5 times

        Prior to 2014, the frequency of black-on-black homicide exceeded that of police-on-black homicide by a factor of 40.

    4. Exactly right. Thanks! And after today’s tweets, anyone who still supports this despicable, sadistic racist should be shunned. He has thoroughly debased the office of president.

  14. Good find, Darren. I was watching a sport’s reporter show. They were all elitist reporters who think this boycott and fan unrest is just poppycock. They also thought this Donald Trump for President was poppycock as well. Ironically, a reporter who DOES understand this dynamic is a former KC Times sport columnist, Jason Whitlock. Check him out on Twitter or even better, his Fox Sports show, Speak for Yourself.

    1. One of the first times I came aware of corporate irresponsibility as pre-teen started with Nestle actually spawning from a baby formula controversy where the company heavily marketed their products to women in second and third world countries to entice them to move away from breast feeding. The product was, as I remember if not vaguely, had negative nutritional value. Coupled with poor women who, through lack of proper instruction, diluted the formula with water to cut the cost. There was an unacceptable level of malnutrition resulting from this marketing campaign.

      I’ve said this before but I consider myself and my cohorts fortunate in that when we were in grade school during the 1970’s our schools taught us to respect the land, and our environment. It was just as natural as mathematics or spelling in the curricula–not tree hugging, political or granola like it can be today. Back then it was apolitical where normal people advocated conservation. Later the environmental movement made a great strategic blunder when it sided solely with the left and half the country doesn’t respect or believe them. In my lifetime I saw environmentalists change from your middle aged grade school teacher to angry common scolds with tattoos all over their bodies and dressed like neo-hippies. Every sentence they utter has at least one mean reference to a republican politician or how everyone is evil except them. Average people are repelled and the conservation cause is straightjacketed due to political fighting between these groups.

      So after I saw the Bhopal chemical disasters, Japanese and Russian nuke plants blowing up, toxic air pollution as suffered in China I came to the practice where I simply boycotted nearly everything by default. If I do need to shop for groceries, for example I don’t buy anything processed and when I dine out I stay with mom & pop establishments. The health and freedom you afford yourself is worth this change of shopping habits. And, you can also avoid providing money toward some bad behaviors made by some of these corporations.

      1. One of the biggest problems with the formula marketing was the lack of clean water to mix the formula with and to wash the bottles. This lead to diarrhea, dehydration, and death of infants. Nestle and other formula manufacturers would actually give away the formula at first, then charge for it later when breast feeding was no longer an option.

      3. Darren – you and I are probably of the same generation! Gen X? – most excellent point that “… I consider myself and my cohorts fortunate in that when we were in grade school during the 1970’s our schools taught us to respect the land, and our environment. It was just as natural as mathematics or spelling in the curricula–not tree hugging, political or granola like it can be today. Back then it was apolitical where normal people advocated conservation. Later the environmental movement made a great strategic blunder when it sided solely with the left and half the country doesn’t respect or believe them. In my lifetime I saw environmentalists change from your middle aged grade school teacher to angry common scolds with tattoos all over their bodies and dressed like neo-hippies. Every sentence they utter has at least one mean reference to a republican politician or how everyone is evil except them. Average people are repelled and the conservation cause is straightjacketed due to political fighting between these groups.”

        I grew up in West Germany and we had recycling early in the 70s – it was simply something one did – no militant agenda. Young, old, conservative, hippie whatever took their bottles and paper products in – no curbside back in the day.

        For sure Mom and Pop is the way to go although I must confess I have a weakness for Waffle House =).

  18. Will Our Only POTUS regret his speech as NOT bidness [sic] friendly? Nah! When did O.O.P. ever regret anything? lol

  19. Personally, I would like to go to a coffee house, take a college class, watch a movie or awards show, a horse show, football game, soccer game, and otherwise go on about my day without being subjected to the political views of the employees at their workplace.

    If I want politics, there are many venues where I can discuss it, such as this blog. It’s difficult to find any straight news without the political commentary, typically leaning hard Left. Even The Onion has become politicized. I went to a fabric store recently and the cutter was talking politics.

    Politics has become intrusive. It seems like I can’t buy a cup of tea without being judged for political beliefs. Sure, employees have a Constitutional right of free speech, but if they get political and divisive in the work place, it’s the employer’s discretion whether to keep them on. Perhaps an employer would prefer a more inclusive, tolerant environment for his or her customers. Maybe people just want to relax, drink a beer, and watch a football game without players looking for canonization while being deeply disrespectful to our country.

    If they want to improve the lives of people here, then there are myriad ways for them to roll their sleeves up.

    I’ve gone to many horse shows where there were enough Canadian participants that they included the Canadian national anthem along with our own. I took my hat off and politely stood with my hand over my heart. It’s expected respectful behavior. Since different countries have different traditions during an anthem, such as bowing or placing your hand over your heart, just standing and facing their flag is sufficient. And of course when our anthem plays, we are to face the flag with our hand over our heart, and sing along if we feel so inclined.

    These are the basic etiquette guidelines that are specifically designated to show respect to our country, and to others when their anthem plays. If these players claim that they do respect our country and our military, then they are in error when they take a knee. That is not respectful for our anthem, and it would be an insult to do so when another country plays their anthem. Insulting our country is not constructive dialogue or making suggestions for improvement.

    https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/36/301

      1. It is a beautiful anthem. I rather enjoy it. Plus as a sister Western nation and ally, we should be good friends when each other’s anthems play.

        1. Karen – Canada supplied us with a lot of good booze during Prohibition, they will always be our ally. 😉

      2. I have made it a point to learn the Canadian anthem. I enjoy going to hockey games and I like to sing along. When the sound system failed a year or so ago at a Canadian hockey game, the crowd lustily sang our anthem. I figure we should be ready to return the favor if needed.

        1. FFS – you can actually sing the Canadian Anthem, unlike the American anthem, which requires someone with a voice with an octave and a half. You will notice that the pro doing the singing is doing great, but the people in the stands are struggling.

    2. I agree Karen. I have no interest in being sold politics by a business’ employees. I had noticed a different approach between line employees and when I deal with management or vendors on a business to business level. With the latter, we discuss business and perhaps small talk about family etc. But I found when dealing with retail or customer service people outside my business, the politics sometimes creeps in.

      Usually when I get the politics from them I just turn around and leave. If there are political signs or logos on the outside of the building I don’t walk in. But the most recent time my sister and I needed to execute some legal documents at a bank. As the bank official notarized one of the documents, my sister mentioned that the employee’s signature had a similar style to our president, which it actually did, to which the employee smirked and said “I hope not” with a scowl on her face. The gall of that. Unfortunately we were on a tight deadline and I had no practicable choice but to just bear it. I guess there are those who have supplanted religion with politics and integrated it so tightly into their lives they don’t see past this.

      1. Darren Smith – I worked as a salesman for a while and my boss taught me you never talk politics. You never put political stickers on your car, etc. All of that can cost you a sale. To this day I do not put stickers on my car of any type, my car is agnostic, just like me. 😉

        1. You are correct. I’ve also found that bumper stickers encourage tailgating because sometimes people drive closely to read them.

          1. Darren – vanity plates also encourage tailgating as you try to interpret them. 😉

      2. When employees do this, they seem to blithely assume that everyone agrees with them. It would be inconceivable for anyone to take offense, and if they did, they get more brownie points for fighting the good fight. If their employer objects or it affects business, then it’s the fault of capitalism, of course.

  20. NFL sponsors are being boycotted, tweeted and emailed and Papa John got a head start. Good on them.

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