Football, Politics, & the NFL’s Audience Calculus

What the recent Charlie Kirk tributes say about a long-running strategy of political positioning

September 10, 2025 was a dark day for America. There was yet another school shooting — the 161st of 2025 — this time at Evergreen High School in Colorado, at 12:24 PM. Fourteen minutes before that happened, conservative political personality and co-founder of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk, was shot in the neck during a leg of his “The American Comeback Tour” at Utah Valley University. Later that afternoon Kirk, tragically, was pronounced dead, another high-profile instance of rampant gun violence in the United States. All this happening the day before the 24th anniversary of the September 11th attacks created a moment of massive grief and emotion across the country.

The following day, the NFL played a game in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers held a moment of silence for Charlie Kirk (while notably not mentioning the school shooting in Colorado), with the PA announcer saying that “the NFL condemns all violence in our communities. It will take all of us to stop hate”. Over the weekend, seven other teams held moments of silence for Kirk, while the Steelers flew American flags at half-staff and the Vikings and Texans held moments of silence for all victims of gun violence.