Greg Kelly, the outspoken Newsmax host and former Marine, reportedly used his Thursday broadcast to declare a permanent break with professional football, accusing the National Football League of embracing “woke” politics at the expense of its fans.
“I can’t stand the NFL. I’m boycotting football basically forever,” Kelly announced on Greg Kelly Reports, after airing a 2021 NFL commercial that proclaimed, “Football is gay… Football is queer… Football is transgender.” Kelly booed the ad on air before explaining why he believes the league has abandoned its core audience.
“They helped ruin this country, alright?” he said as a chyron blared, NOW FOOTBALL IS WOKE. Kelly emphasized that while he enjoyed the game as a child, he no longer finds value in watching. “Look, I like football the sport. I played it as a little kid on the peewee league, you know? But what do we get out of it really, you know? Watching those guys get exercise, make money, get ahead in their lives, while we just sit there and watch them and bet our own money sometimes on it. I want out.”
Kelly suggested that even the spectacle of the Super Bowl no longer felt authentic. “Sometimes some of these Super Bowl games seem almost rigged,” he said. Pointing to the much-hyped relationship between Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce and pop icon Taylor Swift, Kelly dismissed it outright: “I’ll tell you what’s really phony, the Kelce Travis Taylor Swift whatever the hell that thing is. It is fake. It is a strategy for I don’t know what.”
Much of Kelly’s ire was directed at NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, whom he accused of prioritizing profits and political fashion over the game. “I blame Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the football league. This guy will do anything to stay on top of money mountain, including get vaxxed,” Kelly said, highlighting Goodell’s decision to take the COVID-19 vaccine. “Look at this, huh? See that? Covid vaxxed! That’s your problem, pal. I don’t like him, I don’t trust him, and at the moment of truth, what did he do? All that stuff about George Floyd, country was burning up, and he threw gas on that fire.”
Kelly underscored his criticism by playing a clip of Goodell’s 2020 remarks in which the commissioner expressed support for Black Lives Matter and spoke against “the systematic oppression of black people.” To Kelly, the message reflected not courage, but pandering. “What does this wannabe jock know about any of that stuff? He knows about money. He knows about how to placate the mob.”
The Newsmax host concluded by urging viewers to reclaim their weekends from what he sees as a corrupted industry. “I don’t like it, what he did, how he did it, and now we’re supposed to watch his games and make him and the owners richer? I’m out. I’m not gonna watch these games. I didn’t last season. There are other things to do with our time. You could learn a language on Sunday afternoons.”
For Kelly, football may remain America’s most popular sport. But the NFL, he argued, has become a symbol of an entertainment culture more concerned with politics and profit than with the fans who once filled its stadiums.
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