Colin Kaepernick immediately loses Nike endorsement after anti-white rant.
Colin Kaepernick still has his Nike deal, though some bloggers want you to think he lost it the same day he announced it. Nike made Kaepernick one of the faces of its "Just Do It" campaign 30th anniversary and debuted the first ad Sept. 3. Kaepernick confirmed the new deal by posting the ad on his personal Twitter and Instagram, a move that generated praise from some, while prompting others to use the hashtag #NikeBoycott and cut the Nike logo out of their Nike products or burn them. It also prompted a false article from Conservative Columns claiming Kaepernick made an "anti-white rant" that resulted in him losing the deal. The Conservative Columns website has since been taken down. This story was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Then a San Francisco 49ers quarterback, Kaepernick started kneeling during the national anthem before games in 2016 to protest the treatment of people of color in the United States. "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," Kaepernick told NFL Media in 2016. "To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder." Since then, other NFL players have continued to protest, either by kneeling or by other gestures. President Donald Trump has weighed in numerous times, saying that the NFL should fire or suspend protesting players. "Just like the NFL, whose ratings have gone WAY DOWN, Nike is getting absolutely killed with anger and boycotts," Trump tweeted Wednesday. "I wonder if they had any idea that it would be this way? As far as the NFL is concerned, I just find it hard to watch, and always will, until they stand for the FLAG!" The Nike deal comes after Kaepernick has not had an NFL contract for more than a year-and-a-half. Last week, an arbitrator denied the NFL’s request to dismiss Kaepernick’s collusion complaint that claims NFL owners have kept him off the field because of his protests, not because of his football ability. The false Conservative Columns story was copied from the website America’s Last Line of Defense, which self-identifies as a satire site. Conservative Columns did not include a disclaimer on its home page or on the story. Conservative Columns copied another story from America’s Last Line of Defense earlier this week with a similar headline: "UPDATE: Sasha Obama’s racist anti-white rant just got her expelled." We rated that claim Pants on Fire. In addition to the identical content, the America’s Last Line of Defense article appears under the same headline as conservativecolumns.com, and it’s filed in the site’s category of "Political misinformation under the guise of ‘satire.’" We rate this claim Pants on Fire. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com
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