I don’t get it. When your network brand is WokeSports, why punish an anchor for being extra woke?

“Just so we’re clear,” tweeted Jemele Hill earlier this afternoon, no doubt after network execs had pulled her aside to complain, “I’m not advocating a NFL boycott.” Um, here’s what she tweeted last night. “JJ” is of course Cowboys owner Jerry Jones:

This play always work. Change happens when advertisers are impacted. If you feel strongly about JJ's statement, boycott his advertisers. https://t.co/LFXJ9YQe74

— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) October 9, 2017

If you strongly reject what Jerry Jones said, the key is his advertisers. Don't place the burden squarely on the players. https://t.co/Gc48kchkuv

— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) October 9, 2017

Right, technically she’s advocating a secondary boycott of the Cowboys’ advertisers, not the team itself, but the intent to punish the franchise financially for Jones’s “no kneeling” anthem directive is clear.

Plus, she … is sort of endorsing a boycott of the team itself:

Cowboys have a huge national following. Lot of black & brown folks are Cowboys fans. What if they turned their backs on them? https://t.co/qezpPwDTAB

— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) October 9, 2017

Calling the president a white supremacist is one thing but asking viewers not to patronize the advertisers of a marquee NFL team whose games occasionally air on her own employer’s network is a bridge too far — especially since other teams are apt to follow Dallas’s lead and impose “no kneeling” policies of their own, potentially requiring a boycott of all NFL games per Hill’s logic.

Wokeness is a fine thing in moderation but not when it begins to hurt the bottom line. And so:

ESPN's Statement on Jemele Hill: pic.twitter.com/JkVoBVz7lv

— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) October 9, 2017

I love the fact that it seemingly didn’t even occur to Hill, an ESPN employee, that encouraging a boycott of pro football advertisers might create a problem for her network. Did she think ESPN was a nonprofit?

The only fitting outcome from this anthem-protest clusterfark now would be for Hill to resign in protest from ESPN and then become a cause celebre on the left, with hundreds of thousands of sympathetic liberals refusing to watch games anymore in solidarity. Combine that with all of the right-wing fans who are refusing to watch in annoyance at the anthem protests and you’d have a perfect political storm damaging ratings for ESPN’s NFL coverage, a pillar of the network’s financial strategy. They may end up woking themselves to death.

Here’s 49ers safety Eric Reid discussing “systemic oppression” in the context of Mike Pence’s publicity stunt at yesterday’s Colts game. Exit quotation from Dolphins owner Stephen Ross: “Trump has made [standing for anthem] about patriotism. It’s so important if that’s what the country is looking at to look at [the protest] differently.”