This document analyzes the conflict between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and the NFL over the scheduling of two presidential debates on nights when NFL games were scheduled. Trump claimed the NFL had written him a letter saying it was "ridiculous" but the NFL denied sending such a letter. While scheduling conflicts between debates and popular televised sports are difficult to avoid, Trump's accusations that Hillary Clinton deliberately planned the dates were unfounded. The overlapping events may have contributed to lower television ratings for both the debates and NFL games.

1. Conflict between the
NFL and Trump
CREATED BY: GABRIELLE ENGLUND

2. “NFL denies writing letter to Donald
Trump about conflict with debates”
-Will Brinson
 “The Donald says the NFL called it ‘ridiculous’ for two debates to go
against night games.” (Brinson).
 Two of the presidential debates and a Monday and Sunday night game are
conveniently planned right at the same time and day.
 Trump declared that the NFL wrote him saying it was ‘ridiculous’ in which
the NFL denies ever sending a letter.
 Then Trump proceeds to claim that it is ridiculous that the events are
overlapping and blames Hillary Clinton.
 Ratings also decreased for the NFL compared to lasts years viewings.

3. Cont.
 Trump then accuses Hillary of not liking the NFL and that she planned it so
they were on the same day, which doesn’t benefit her in any way.
 Hillary has no way of creating these dates in which Donald has no right to
say it was her.
 Donald Trump created a conflict between the NFL and the debate for no
reason since his claim about the email was invalid according to NFL.

4. Conflict
Donald Trump claims that the NFL wrote him saying its ‘ridiculous‘ how two
debates are scheduled during a Monday and Sunday night football game.

6. Interorganizational Conflict
 This level of conflict is interorganizational in which there are
“disputes between two or more organizations.” (Miller)
 Donald Trump accused the NFL for mailing a letter concerning
the dates, which didn’t actually happen.
 This dispute is between the NFL and the campaign
organization.

7. Phases of organizational conflict
 Latent conflict- Both organizations have events that are
incompatible and also raise concerns. The debates were
originally planned before the schedule of the 2016 football
season was released.
 Perceived Conflict- The party of Trump believes that Hillary
was to blame for this conflict and that she purposely planned
so that view ratings would go down. Trump raised awareness
by saying the NFL sent the letter when they really didn’t.

8. Phases of organizational conflict Cont.
 Felt conflict- In the end Trump was on to accusing Hillary for
the conflict, when she couldn’t have had a say. The NFL
claimed that they did not send the letter but did wish that
they weren’t on the same nights.
 Manifest Conflict- outcomes for the strategies were the
ratings of the NFL that were down 20% from last years game.
And no conflict was raised for the debate.
 Conflict Aftermath- a long term consequence is that when
planning debates it’s hard to organize with sports events.

10. Past interference between the NFL and
debates
 In the event that an debate is on the same day as a
NFL football is actually quite common.
 There has been two instances that there was no
conflict between the two organizations.
 All of the other times there has been conflict with a
sport, concerning the debate.

11. Is Donald Trump right???
 Donald Trump is right that there shouldn’t be interference with sport
television
 There is no way to prevent this from happening, as a result.
 Trump wasn’t right about his “conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton is in
cahoots with the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates to rig
the debate schedule is –– to quote Vice President Joe Biden –– a bunch of
malarkey.” (Reimer)
 There is truth that it is inconvenient that debates and sports collide
resulting in viewing going down for both.

12. Fixing the conflict
 One way to avoid this conflict is by planning debates apart from another
although it is hard not to conflict with all sports.
 NFL football is the most watch televised sport so there will be little
complication because the two events are valued by our citizens.
 Plan on days when there isn’t Thursday night football, Sunday night
football and Monday night football.
 All in all this will happen again and neither event will cancel or reschedule.
Such is life.

14. Television Ratings for debate
 “numbers released Monday showed that fewer people tuned into Sunday
night’s presidential rematch compared to the candidates’ late- September
face- off, which drew roughly 84 million viewers across several broadcast
and cable networks.” (Huddleston)
 Ratings did drop 25%
 Major networks were ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, Fox News, and MSNBC
 “scored a 37.2 household rating on Sunday night, compared to the 46.2
rating those networks saw in the first debate.” (Huddleston)

15. Television ratings for the NFL
 NBC did not air the debate but instead was airing the NFL game between
the New Your Giants and the Green Bay Packers.
 “The game drew roughly 14 million viewers last night, while about 18
million people watched the first debate on NBC.” (Huddleston)
 Ratings decreased by 20%

16. NFL Football??
Presidential Debate??

17. How to watch both
 Use your phone
 Connect on television
 Connect on the internet
 Watch twitter feed

18. Works Cited
 Brinson, Will. “NFL denies writing letter to Donald Trump about conflict with debate.”
CBSSports.com. 31 July 2016,
http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-denies-writing-letter-to-donald-trump-about-conflict-
with-debates/
 Huddleston Jr, Tom. “Early Tv ratings show drop-off for second presidential debate. Fortune. 10 October
2016. Retrieved from
http://fortune.com/2016/10/10/presidential-debate-tv-ratings-decline/
 Miller, Katherine. “Organizational Communication”. Human relations and human resources approaches. 7th
edition.(9).
 Reimer, Alex. “Donald Trump is right: presidential debates shouldn’t conflict with NFL games. Forbes. 1
August 2016. Retrieved from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexreimer/2016/08/01/donald-trump-is-right-presidential-debates-shouldnt-
conflict-with-nfl-games/#2643296c6005