“I watch college football”
Colin Kaepernick told NBC News he no longer watches the NFL. He is 38 now, a decade removed from the preseason that ended his playing career, and he framed the decision as a refusal rather than a loss of interest.
“I’m not gonna support an organization that one, is actively blackballing me, but two, has targeted my brothers who have been protesting as part of this as well,” he said. “I watch college football.”
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How he got here
The 2016 preseason is the reference point. Kaepernick had already been sitting on the bench during the national anthem before he and San Francisco teammate Eric Reid took a knee together, a picture that travelled further than anything he did on a field. He told NFL Network at the time that he would not stand for a flag representing a country he said oppressed Black people and people of colour, and that the matter was bigger than football.
Four seasons earlier he had taken the 49ers to a Super Bowl. He was out of the league by the end of 2016 and never played again. He and Reid sued the NFL alleging collusion to keep them unemployed. The two sides settled in 2019 without the case reaching a courtroom.
What he does now
Kaepernick runs Know Your Rights camps, which describe their purpose as advancing the wellbeing of Black and Brown communities through education, self-empowerment and mass mobilisation. He has also funded independent autopsies for people who died in incidents involving police.
Asked whether he thinks about his football legacy, he said he does not spend much time on it. His stated focus is on work he believes can have an effect, and he added that other people will decide what the legacy turns out to be.
His memoir, “The Perilous Fight,” is published on Sept. 15. The interview landed two weeks before that date and a week before the NFL season opens, which puts his answer about what he watches on Sundays in front of an audience that will mostly be watching the alternative.
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