It is.
The left has over the past 4 decades, gained near total control of education (via their unions and grants to cronies), popular culture (movies and music), and the media (cable and broadcast TV). Only the internet, talk radio, and a few other aspects of our culture remain center-right, or at least somewhat balanced. Until recently, professional sports was one of the latter, where people of different political stripes could at least gather over a beer and cheer for the team they both love.
Given the tools at their disposal, it’s not surprising that the left started by weaponizing sports talk via their wholly-owned subsidiary, ESPN. Having achieved some success there (ESPN moving further to the left all the time), they’ve not turned to the players themselves. Many of whom (if we’re honest) are not smart enough or sufficiently educated to think beyond doing what they are told).
How do we win a culture war? Same way the left hopes to win against Trump: “RESIST”. We need to be at least as good at standing up (literally) for traditional values as they are at opposing capitalism, traditional man-woman marriage, revising history, and smearing their opponents with charges of racism, sexism, etc.
Are we up to the challenge?
Excellent article (yes, I know it’s in the National Review, just read it!) that proves my arguments above:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/451816/nfl-protests-trump-right