Papa Johns is bleeding dough pretty badly, and the pizza chain’s owner has pointed to the NFL kneelers as the main culprits.
According to Forbes, Papa John Schnatter, founder of the famed pizza joint found his net worth $70 million lighter in just under 24 hours after the company released its third-quarter financial report on Tuesday.
As a result, Papa John’s stock fell 11 percent and is now trading at $60 a share.
Forbes says that Schnatter has blamed the loss of his money on the NFL’s penchant for displaying blatant disrespect to America in the form of kneeling players during the National Anthem.
Schnatter blames part of the downturn on the National Football League, which has faced turbulence amid widespread national anthem protests in the past year. “The NFL has hurt us by not resolving the current debacle,” he said on a conference call on Wednesday. Papa John’s is the league’s official pizza sponsor.
Schnatter took aim specifically at NFL leader Roger Goodell saying “leadership starts at the top, and this is an example of poor leadership.”
Schnatter may very well be correct. Overall, the NFL has seen tanking viewership. Even networks that show NFL are noticing subscribers slamming their decision into reverse and backing away as fast as possible. DirecTV had to offer angry customers refunds for their NFL ticket packages over the NFL’s inability to respect the country many of the sports fans love. ESPN lost a whopping 480,000 subscribers in October alone.
Of course, casting a negative view on the NFL kneelers sent the left into an uproar with all the retaliation you’d expect for calling out the truth when you see it.
If you were to ask Think Progress, they would give you the hottest of hot takes and tell you that Schnatter’s conservative tendencies made him blame black athletes because they’re black.
The Root, being racist as usual, said Papa Johns is shedding “white tears” over its sinking sales.
As of this writing, looking up the word Papa Johns on Twitter will reward you with a deluge of tweets from the leftist mob bashing Papa Johns as horrible pizza, and not being “woke” enough.
However, the best part of the left’s meltdown over Schnatter’s finger pointing is a rising conspiracy theory that this has all been masterminded by the nefarious Cowboy’s owner, Jerry Jones.
According to the theory, Jones — who is close to Schnatter — urged the pizza chain CEO to lash out at Goodell because Jones wants Goodell gone, somewhat because the two men are at odds over the NFL kneelers, but mostly because Jones is supposedly angry over the re-suspension of Ezekial Elliot.
Jones believes the political activism displayed by the NFL is hurting the league, and if the falling numbers show anything, it’s that Jones is correct. If Goodell won’t lift a finger to stop the madness — and stop the money bleeding — then Goodell will have to be removed, which is what Jones is trying to accomplish.
For all intents and purposes — and I’ve written on this before — Jones is the better leader and the better businessman. The mob conspiracy that Jones is the man behind the curtain may have some weight to it, but at this time no one can provide any proof.
Schnatter is also a solid businessman. He’s looking at his bleeding wallet, recognizing the wound, and is pointing right at it. Leftist’s can’t handle the fact that what he’s pointing at is something they think is the greatest thing to ever happen to sports so they have to assign a nefarious motive. It’s Alinsky 101.
Whatever stops you from considering that Schnatter, as well as Jones, are correct.
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