As the longest government shutdown in the history of the United States drags on, one sports pundit dared to shine a light on the suffering of NFL announcers who rely on private jets to traverse the country, The Spun reported.
Against the backdrop of a Congressional budget standoff, the U.S. government officially “shut down” just after midnight on Oct. 1.
The effects were immediate, inflicting pain on federal staffers who worked without pay, eventually delaying essential funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and causing flight delays and cancellations to stack up nationwide.
On Nov. 5, five days had passed since nearly 42 million SNAP recipients’ benefits weren’t disbursed, and air traffic controllers were facing work without pay.
The country remained on edge, and Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) of the New York Times-owned sports outlet The Athletic weighed in on X.
“They are messing with big-time NFL announcer private jet travel. No one is going to stand for this,” he wrote.
Private jets and their ocean-faring cousins, megayachts and superyachts, have emerged as a symbol of drastic income inequality worldwide in recent years.
On Oct. 28, Oxfam, a nonprofit focused on wealth and climate inequality, observed that by using private jets and superyachts, the richest 0.1% of humanity generates more planet-warming carbon than the “world’s poorest 10% emits in 11 years.”
Social media users were already broadly displeased by witnessing excessive use of private jets and megayachts on Instagram and in the news, and Marchand’s post opened the floodgates of commenter aggravation, with some unsure about whether his post had been written with sarcasm or not.
“You really have one hell of an ego, don’t you? Do you really think anyone gives a crap about how inconvenienced millionaire NFL announcers are?” said one flummoxed user.
“What a travesty! Who cares about the shutdown affecting those who need food?” another quipped. “Way to stand up for those NFL announcers! You are doing the lord’s work sir.”
“This is a joke, right?? Wtf cares if YOU get private planes when [Americans] are trying to pay for groceries,” a third replied.
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