Papa John's blames sagging sales on NFL protests, CEO 'disappointed the NFL did not resolve this' https://t.co/mZrl7GCthe pic.twitter.com/83E9Xngh1s
— Blavity (@Blavity) November 1, 2017
Pizza, football, and arguing about value for money — there is nothing John Schnatter can’t make nastier. Since my life ethos has involved never living where there wasn’t adequate pizza delivery available, my only prior knowledge of “Papa John’s” involved its founder making a public fool of himself over the Affordable Care Act back in 2012…
… According to “Papa” John Schnatter, the cost of providing health insurance for all of his pizza chain’s uninsured, full-time employees comes out to about 14 cents on a large pizza. That’s less than adding an extra topping and a third the price of an extra pepperoncini. If you want that piping hot pie delivered, the $2 delivery fee will cost you 14 times as much as that health insurance price hike.
“We’re not supportive of Obamacare, like most businesses in our industry,” Schnatter said on a conference call with shareholders last week, as reported by Politico. “If Obamacare is in fact not repealed, we will find tactics to shallow out any Obamacare costs and core strategies to pass that cost onto consumers in order to protect our shareholders’ best interests.” …
Twitter users were quick to respond to Schnatter’s latest tantrum:
oh my god your pizza tastes like subway puddles https://t.co/UL0tnAvXNq
— 'Big' Tim Murphy (@timothypmurphy) November 1, 2017
Papa John’s is the KFC of pizza
— Vann R. Newkirk II (@fivefifths) November 1, 2017
Colonel Sanders supported George Wallace in the 1968 presidential campaign so this comparison really checks out. https://t.co/dfUqDkV7Lf
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) November 1, 2017
David Roth, at Deadspin, “The NFL’s Stupid Pizza Wars Were Always Coming”:
… If Trump has one single accomplishment as President, it is how thoroughly he’s revealed extremely rich people as being not somehow braver or smarter or more disciplined than the rest of us but somehow exactly the opposite—consumed by pettiness, enslaved by vanity, and perfectly willing to fuck important things up in order to make some point to themselves and their rancid peers.
If you understand this, then there was nothing really that surprising about flame-retardant Italianate foodstuff impresario Papa “John” Schnatter blaming his company’s declining profits on the NFL’s inability to successfully quash its nascent protest movement. It was a little startling, of course, because of how ridiculous it was, but it was less startling than it would have been two years ago. That the statement happened to be obviously incorrect should have been taken as a given.
The speculation that Schnatter might have been put up to this gambit by Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones seems like a bit much at first, until you remember that the phrase “a bit much” no longer applies. So, sure: Schnatter, the boss of the NFL’s Official Pizza Sponsor, took a shot at the leadership of the NFL commissioner at the behest of the vengeful Petro-Creature that owns the Dallas Cowboys, who is of course also Schnatter’s personal friend and an owner of at least 100 Papa John’s franchises, because the aforementioned Petro-Creature is upset about Goodell’s suspension of his star running back. Sure. Absolutely. Everything is this stupid, now…
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AND YET IT GETS EVEN STUPIDER!
The far right is rallying around Papa John's after the founder slammed the NFL https://t.co/cBJ75h0kcO pic.twitter.com/dTyuuqhQpd
— Business Insider (@businessinsider) November 1, 2017
The white supremacist ‘Daily Stormer’ wants to make Papa John’s the official pizza of the alt-right https://t.co/vOiFiZb4CO
— Raw Story (@RawStory) November 3, 2017
Truly, we are living in the dumbest timeline.