NFL fines 49ers quarterback $10,000 for wearing Beats headphones during press conference
The National Football League fined San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick $10,000 for wearing a pair Beats headphones, which bucks the league's rule against promoting unsponsored products.
Source: CSN Bay Area
As seen in the embedded video below, Kaepernick wore the pink Beats by Dre headphones during a press conference held shortly after the 49ers' recent win over the Kansas City Chiefs last Sunday. The star quarterback is sponsored by Apple's Beats unit and has been featured in various ads promoting its wares.
According to Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, players are restricted to wearing headsets made by NFL sponsor Bose when conducting interviews. The rule extends for 90 minutes following the end of a game.
Kaepernick responded on Thursday by posting to Instagram a screenshot of an article about the fine, along with the caption, "I support breast cancer awareness! My grandma is a survivor!....... *shrugs* some things are now important!" The pink headphones were apparently in honor of breast cancer awareness month.
It is unclear if Apple's Beats covered the fine and Kaepernick would not confirm either way. Beats has a number of pro athlete promoters on its roster, including NBA star LeBron James, tennis icon Serena Williams and Brazilian soccer phenom Neymar da Silva Santos, Jr, better known as Neymar Jr.
Today's development comes less than one week after the NFL confirmed to Re/code that players and coaches are not allowed to wear headphone products during interviews other than those made by Bose. Bose inked a deal to become the league's "official headphone" in March.
Source: CSN Bay Area
As seen in the embedded video below, Kaepernick wore the pink Beats by Dre headphones during a press conference held shortly after the 49ers' recent win over the Kansas City Chiefs last Sunday. The star quarterback is sponsored by Apple's Beats unit and has been featured in various ads promoting its wares.
According to Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, players are restricted to wearing headsets made by NFL sponsor Bose when conducting interviews. The rule extends for 90 minutes following the end of a game.
Kaepernick responded on Thursday by posting to Instagram a screenshot of an article about the fine, along with the caption, "I support breast cancer awareness! My grandma is a survivor!....... *shrugs* some things are now important!" The pink headphones were apparently in honor of breast cancer awareness month.
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It is unclear if Apple's Beats covered the fine and Kaepernick would not confirm either way. Beats has a number of pro athlete promoters on its roster, including NBA star LeBron James, tennis icon Serena Williams and Brazilian soccer phenom Neymar da Silva Santos, Jr, better known as Neymar Jr.
Today's development comes less than one week after the NFL confirmed to Re/code that players and coaches are not allowed to wear headphone products during interviews other than those made by Bose. Bose inked a deal to become the league's "official headphone" in March.
Comments
The NFL is a monopoly that should be broken up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law
Professional sports leagues are exempt from antitrust laws. It's not just the NFL.
I feel bad for these millionaire athletes.
Made by beats or made by bose, either way for a few hours a week they are forced to wear horrendous headphones.
He got fined a couple of years ago for wearing a San Francisco Giants cap at an NFL press conference.
You'd think he'd learn.
However, with the news cycle this will generate, and the number of times the words "Colin Kaepernick" and "Beats Headphones" will be said in the same sentence during those news reports, it will be well worth Apple paying the fine every time a star player does this. $10k for the amount of air time this will generate is spectacularly cheap advertising.
They don't have to wear anything, the coaches do, but if the athletes are going to be on camera with anything pertaining to the NFL they can't wear headphones of a different brand.
Didn't he also get in trouble for wearing a Miami Dolphins cap?
This looks like a #backfire waiting to happen for the NFL. If it had been just the Beats headphones, maybe not so much, but NFL may take heat for the fact that he was doing it to support a worthy cause - makes NFL look like they are uncaring (even though the tweet indicating that they were worn to show support for cancer awareness came after the fine).
Didn't he also get in trouble for wearing a Miami Dolphins cap?
I'm not 100% sure, but when I read your comment, it seemed to ring a bell, so you might well be right.
He’d be fined if he had been naked for not wearing Adidas™ shoes, Nike® pants, a Reebok© shirt, and Revlon† hair product… Screw ‘em all. Don’t pay the fine.
I feel bad for these millionaire athletes.
Made by beats or made by bose, either way for a few hours a week they are forced to wear horrendous headphones.
They don't have to wear anything, the coaches do, but if the athletes are going to be on camera with anything pertaining to the NFL they can't wear headphones of a different brand.
But in staying true to the appleinsider forums, I like my hyperbolic, over-the-top and factually untrue version better.
I have this vision in my head where the athletes are literally shackled with headphones and wires, as if they were on the way to prison.
In that case the athletes are most certainly forced to wear Bose headphones forever.
Don't forget, kids, "No highs? No lows? Must be Bose!"
Isn't that a breast cancer ribbon engraved in his hair? That should have sufficed.
I'd take naked over this.
In addition Apple knows how to stretch this one event out through litigation for the rest of the football season while looking like the little guy taking on the "big bad NFL owners." I can just see a Beats ad for the new noise-canceling earphones: "SO good they were banned by the NFL."
Sad, really...
He was listening to the National Anthem at the time.
Those aren't the stipulations. This ban extends to TV interviews conducted during pre-season training camps or practice sessions and on game day — starting before the opening kickoff through the final whistle to post-game interviews conducted in the locker room or on the podium. The restriction remains in place until 90 minutes after the play has ended.
And that’s psychotic. Screw it. Just start up the XFL again to compete.