Well, regarding FOX, it’s worth remembering that the FOX network is not the same as FOX news. Yes, it’s the same corporation, but the mainstream network doesn’t have quite the same ideological focus is the 24-hour news channel.
More generally, it’s going to be interesting to see how this plays out, for the TV networks and the NFL. The NFL owners have their own (generally reactionary) politics, but as business owners they are less concerned about politics than about profit. Standard amoral capitalism. They’re going to do whatever is most likely to keep the money flowing. The problem for them, in this case, is that they’re finding it increasingly difficult to avoid alienating some significant proportion of their fanbase.
On the one hand, they’ve been pissing off (some) fans with stuff like their mishandling of domestic violence cases, their terrible response to the concussion issue, and the fact that Kaepernick still hasn’t got a job despite being better than the vast majority of back-up QBs, and better than some of the current starting QBs. Owners and the NFL are also increasingly angering some fanbases with their mercenary efforts to extort stadium money from taxpayers, and their decision to let teams move to new locations in order to make more money for owners. And some people are complaining about the product on the field, arguing that, in an era of massive TV money, you don’t need to field a good team to make a pile of money, so some owners aren’t even trying. All of these things have contributed to the fact that I basically haven’t watched the NFL for over two full seasons now. I watch English soccer in the Fall and Winter instead.
On the other hand, Trump is probably right that, if players keep protesting, and the NFL defends them, they’ll probably lose a significant number of hardcore conservatives and Trump supporters. There are people who will boycott the NFL if they perceive the league and the players as being too liberal, or too supportive of political protests like Kaepernick’s.
Whichever way they turn right now, it’s going to be hard for the NFL to keep everyone happy. They won’t lose too much money in the short term, because so much of their revenue comes from the massive TV deals, which are already in place. But if ratings continue to decline, then advertisers aren’t going to be willing to pay big money to air their commercials during the games, which means that the TV networks, in turn, won’t be willing to fork over billions of dollars for the TV rights when the contracts come up for renewal.
In some ways, it’s a bit hard to know who to root for in this whole thing. The NFL and its owners are all major assholes, but even combined they’re not as bad as Trump. I’m hoping they all come out of it badly.