But this is America, you do have freedom of speech, but however you choose to exercise that right will still have consequences.

The reason this is different from the public sphere of social media is the barrier to entry. NFL players acquire an extremely difficult to obtain platform that represents a whole city or region, while a pundit on fb or yt or twit only represents himself, and maybe his followers.

Millions of people don't depend on the NFL to share their opinion. They watch it to escape the doldrums of life. And when they feel the politics seeping into an outlet of escapism, it rankles them. Free speech begets free speech.

Private businesses that cater to a subset of the population can be expected to police their user base to maintain a culture that matches their founding principles. That's acceptable, and laudable in a free society. Let there be a black club, a white club, an atheist club, or a religious club, or a labor club, or a business club. And let there be non-violent opposition clubs for all of these groups. As long as the "club" is social and composed of individuals - no private organization should pretend to or actually enjoy the powers of Public governance, outside of what the rights to free speech and assembly allow them to lobby for. But their targets should always be the voters and not the men and women voted into office. Corruption of an official sworn to defend the Constitution, and a government designed to be of the People, for the People, should be a high crime. When "clubs" consist of Public officials and billionaires working in secret to manipulate the lawful government, the People suffer.

Private institutions that become ubiquitous to the degree that their use becomes a borderline necessity to be a normal part of the greater American society should be held to higher, American standards.

So if a player in the NFL wants to take a knee? That's fine with me. I defend everyone's right to protest. But I hate the choice made to subvert the emblem of the land that gives them the freedom to do so. And I will never watch an NFL game again because of it.