Almost two full weeks ago on Nov. 1, executives from the Papa John’s pizza chain went on an earnings conference call and criticized NFL leadership for not stopping players’ protests during the national anthem, blamed those protests for their deteriorating sales, and said they had pulled much of their present NFL advertising in exchange for future ad spots.
Papa John’s was then subsequently and repeatedly dunked on by rival pizza chains, by frozen pizza chains, by reporters who pointed out that the NFL likely wasn’t the problem, and by the internet in general, and they then even had to disavow support from white supremacists. But the controversy had largely died down, until for some reason Tuesday, the chain’s official social media account decided to post a series of tweets discussing their earnings call comments and apologizing “to anyone that thought they were divisive”:
What’s worse, making that kind of a non-apology in the first place (it’s not even admitting they did anything wrong, but apologizing if people “thought they were divisive” for making obviously-divisive comments), or waiting two weeks to make it? Either way, it led to the chain again getting repeatedly dunked on:
https://twitter.com/heartthrob666/status/930598375879307264
https://twitter.com/andrecole/status/930597877340082177
https://twitter.com/mikemurphlas/status/930598648223813632
Somehow, it doesn’t seem like this is going to win many back. Worse apologies, worse timing, Papa John’s. They should have just stuck with Jerry Jones rapping:
[Papa John’s on Twitter]
Why should Papa Johns apologize? They were 100 percent correct. They are paying the bills