Virginia sports bar owner to stop showing NFL games after anthem protests

FAIRFAX, Va. - The owner of a sports bar in Northern Virginia is joining President Donald Trump in protesting the NFL players “Take a Knee” movement that took place before games this past weekend.

R.L. Butler said he is pulling the plug on showing NFL games at Fat Tuesday’s in Fairfax. Butler has owned his business for 35 years and said the NFL ban is motivated by his daughter who served in Afghanistan for a yearlong tour of duty.

“After the football players were doing their protests, I realized this weekend that this is getting to a point where it's pretty serious and also to a point where it's very foolish,” Butler said. “So after the Sunday game and the Monday night game, I woke up Tuesday morning thinking this is wrong and I started thinking about my daughter, and I said, ‘Well, what would have happened if my daughter comes home or would have came home in a box or a body bag or a wheelchair or something?’”

After Butler discussed this with his wife, she got on her computer and created a flyer saying that Fat Tuesday’s would no longer show NFL games until the protests stop.

The flyer was posted on the bar’s Facebook page, which went viral. But they eventually took the Facebook page down.

“We actually turned it off because 95 percent was positive, but there were some [posts] on there that was personal and attacked me and my family,” said Butler.

For the sports fans who come to his bar on Sundays, those customers will have to be content with baseball, hockey, basketball and other sports on his televisions.

But when will Butler lift his NFL ban?

“Until the NFL gets their grips and have their players respect the flag and our national anthem,” he said.