<P> Major sports sponsors Nike, Under Armour, and Ford all issued statements in support of athletes' freedom of expression after Trump's comments regarding the NFL . Nike's statement read, "Nike supports athletes and their right to freedom of expression on issues that are of great importance to our society ." In September 2016, after Brandon Marshall knelt during the national anthem, Century Link and Air Academy Federal Credit Union dropped him as a paid sponsor . Radio station WFAY dropped a broadcast of an East Carolina University football game on the station after the marching band took part in the protest, calling it an insult to the U.S. Armed Forces . John Schnatter of sponsor Papa John's Pizza blamed the protests for a drop in sales and a 24% fall in stock during 2017, saying that the "controversy is polarizing the customer, polarizing the country". Later that day, the company announced that the NFL shield or "official sponsor" designation on Papa John's commercials and advertising would be removed . In December 2017 Sanderson Farms CEO questioned whether the NFL protests were to blame for falling chicken wing prices . </P> <P> After his first kneel in 2016, Nike was well on its way to sever its four year long partnership with NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick . Nigel Powell, chief communications executive of Nike, convinced the company to maintain their partnership with Kaepernick which eventually led to the launch of the politically and socially controversial advertisement released in 2018, "Nike - Dream Crazy", with Kaepernick as their face of the campaign . Despite the prevalent backlash on social media of people who criticized Kaepernick's actions burning and cutting up their Nike brand clothing, Nike sales increased by 31% within five days after the advertisement was released . This campaign did result in a temporary drop of 2.2% in stock price though . </P> <P> Throughout the remainder of the 2016 season, Kaepernick received public backlash for his protest, with an anonymous NFL executive calling Kaepernick "a traitor". He also stated that he received death threats . </P> <P> Sportscaster Bob Costas offered support for Kaepernick stating, "Patriotism comes in many forms and what has happened is it's been conflated with a bumper - style kind of flag - waving and with the military only so that people cannot see that in his own way Colin Kaepernick, however imperfectly, is doing a patriotic thing ." </P>

List of nfl teams who took a knee