Kid Rock was announced as the featured NHL ASG act.

The NHL created a whole lot of backlash Tuesday with its announcement of Kid Rock as the featured 2nd intermission performer at the upcoming All-Star Game on Feb. 18.

Kid Rock, or Robert James Ritchie, has earned five Grammy nominations and sold over 25 million albums in the U.S., and he does have a new album to promote (Sweet Southern Sugar, released in November). But Ritchie has also garnered a lot of political attention with his endorsement of Donald Trump, his right-wing speeches at concerts, and even his brief flirtation with running for a U.S. Senate seat.

Beyond that, his highest-profile musical successes are a while back; 2010’s Born Free was his last album to go platinum, and his two latest albums haven’t even gone gold yet. So there’s been substantial criticism of this move both from political and relevance angles.

Here’s some of it:

NBCSN had Ritchie on Tuesday night for the official announcement, and that was an interesting interview. First, here’s their announcement, with Jeremy Roenick saying “Can’t get a better guy” and Ritchie playing up his Detroit roots:

Roenick then talked about his friendship with Ritchie, saying “When I talk to people about you, I say, ‘Kid Rock is the most talented musician, I think ever, on the planet, because you can put any instrument in your hand or on your mouth and you can play anything and rock a house and sing any kind of genre.” Ritchie replied with a self-deprecating “Jack of all trades, master of none.”

He then followed that up by talking about working hard the way athletes do:

Ritchie later talked about how he hasn’t done TV for a while, because “It’s a turnoff with all the politics that go into it, what you can and can’t do.” He said the NHL was open to “trying to make this special”:

He went on to talk about how he hopes this leads to other entertainers being given more free reign:

So, this will certainly be an interesting move. The NHL’s taken a lot of Twitter heat over it, but they obviously feel Ritchie’s a valuable get for them. We’ll see how his performance goes and what kind of reaction it generates.

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

88 thoughts on “NHL draws backlash for Kid Rock’s impending All-Star game performance, Jeremy Roenick calls him “the greatest musician in the world”

    1. Huh? Someone bothered by an noxious racist isn’t “butthurt” – it just means they’re normal.

      1. proof please, need any tidbit of proof that he is a noxious racist, other than you stating it like every other idiot libtard. Stop the straw man arguments, as us intelligent life forms don’t operate in that fantasy example world.

        1. You call yourself an intelligent life form, but an intelligent life form wouldn’t repeatedly call people who disagree with them “libtards” or other hateful phrases fed to them by biased media sources.

  1. A bunch of people shitposting on your Twitter feed is not a movement. Get out of your bubble.

    As far as his being pro-Trump—I don’t recall you complaining about Beyoncé being pro-Obama when she did the Super Bowl.

    1. Acting as if being pro-Obama and being pro-Trump are equivalent is really dishonest. Why would you showcase such dishonesty in the same comment you are criticizing them for being dishonest?

      1. Of course there not equivalent. Obama “Un-Won” the Iraq war and blew up an entire region with his “regime change” in Libya & Syria. Destroying another continent as millions of refugees flood into Europe as a consequence of his failures.

        Obama added $9,500,000,000,000 in new debt; Trump created over $7 trillion in new private wealth in just one year.

        Obama set race relations back 50 years and continued the Democrat’s generational War on Blacks. Black families destroyed; 77 % illegitimacy. Black churches destroyed replaced with “Community Organizers”. The continued destruction of black education, nearly 30% don’t graduate HS in spite of lowering standards.

        Obama left with a inner-city black unemployment rate near 20%. In one year of Trump, black unemployment is at an all-time low.

        This list is truly endless…

        “Racist, Racist Racist” has simply replaced “Russia, Russia, Russia” as the first indictment in Fusion One was unsealed last week.

          1. It isn’t worth showing the real facts or positioning things correctly because people who support Trump blindly aren’t interested in facts.

          2. Well I wouldn’t say something that stupid. But you just wanted to get through the checklist for the greatest hits right?

          3. Probably because he doesn’t do that. Also it’s quite funny that you are trying to call him out for calling everyone who disagrees with him racist when you aren’t calling out your conservative friends for calling everyone who disagrees with them “libtards.” Is there a reason for that hypocrisy?

          4. HAHA, damn that is funny, you just described every libtard who’s panties are still in a bunch over Hillary the Harpy not getting elected. You statement is a clear, lazy approach by someone who has nothing to offer, just this non-starter. Nice try though.

          5. “Un won the Iraq War”- opinion
            “Blew up a region”- opinion
            “Destroying another continent”- opinion
            “Set race relations back 50 years”- opinion
            “Destroyed churches and replaced with community organizers”- opinion

            There are 5- at least.

          6. Blaming Obama for “losing” Iraq is a great start if you actually want to be honest.

          7. Iraq was more stable in January 2009 than in January 2017. Maybe “losing” is overdoing it, but he certainly left it in worse shape. Now, GWB is certainly the cause of the war, but President Obama ran for president knowing what responsibilities he’d inherit.

          8. Lol. What should he have done? Reneged on the withdrawal agreement and left the troops there?

          9. Truth hurts? I guess when you have progressive rose colored glasses and a complete lack of knowledge of how the world really works, you make snarky comments like that.

          10. There’s a lot of falsehoods in that post. Also why are you criticizing others for not understanding how the world works when you still support Trump?

          11. No you don’t get it….you stay in the dark cuz the weed must be good. If you paid taxes or workman’s comp you wouldn’t even be here. But libtards like it from behind.

          12. I work- and pay taxes and workman’s comp and all that good stuff that takes my money.

            Nice try though.

        1. Obama “un-won” the Iraq War…by sticking to the withdrawal timeline established during the preceding Republican Administration? Nah.

        1. Truly effective to call someone inferior while mindlessly repeating attack words fed to you by gasbags in conservative media.

          1. Awwww! Triggered, are we progtard? Why don’t you go back to your safe space and work on your coloring book?

      2. Wow, you are still sucking his manhood I see. What a joke, and you must be a retard who eats up the media’s B.S. The amount of damage that man did to this country and it’s reputation is staggering. Read a damn book once in a while and turn off CNN.

        1. Dude- Trump doesn’t give one single fuck about you. NOT ONE!

          There is no need to be trying to backwash on his manhood.

          1. Ummmm, never said he cared at all, I don’t give a damn if he does. Hillary the Harpy actually has disdain for a lot of us, so your point is mooted.

          2. “Mooted” is not the word you want there.

            Also, if you think Hillary hates us worse than Trump you are fooling yourself

      3. I think you need a dictionary because you obviously don’t understand the meaning of the word “dishonest”. I suspect you are pro-OVomit and have virulent Trump Derangement Syndrome.

        1. Huh? Disliking Trump doesn’t mean someone has “Trump Derangement Syndrome” – it just means they’re a decent person who dislikes the idea of an incompetent narcissist running the country.

  2. Who cares about the racism? The quality of his music should be enough to disqualify him from being booked by everyone.

  3. Buwahahaha these Millennials and Libtarts are triggered over anything. And i didn’t vote for the ooompa loompa for president, i voted for None of the above.

    1. Lol what? Lets see who is actually the triggered one here.

      Group A: The people disgusted by the NHL choosing a shitty racist musician.

      Group B: The person so bothered by Group A that they call them lazy right wing insults.

      Group B doesn’t come off looking so great there, do they? It’s pretty embarrassing to get mad and insult people because they have a problem with a racist.

      1. The only people disgusted are a few triggered individuals on the left. And the only reason they are disgusted is because this guy supports Trump. Has nothing to do with his music. Kendrick Lamar is a racist, his music is more horrible, but I didn’t see all the outrage for his performing at the CFP championship?

  4. Oh no, he has a different opinion from me, off with his head!

    I do agree with those mocking it for purely musical reasons, though.

  5. How is this controversial?

    People in this country are mostly either Democrat or Republican. It is not controversial to allow a Republican to exist in the public eye.

    Ignore 10 people on Twitter who think it is and life will be much better.

  6. Coming from a person who voted Obama (twice), I fully endorse Kid Rock to perform at the All-Star game. The left-wing fascist movement just got to stop; it’s called censorship if you don’t let people go on tv just because they disagree with you. Also – for the record sales argument: have you heard of Guns & Roses, U2? Right, these are the best selling tours of 2017 and neither act has had a platinum album in America in over 10+ years.

  7. Hey, jerk, you keep calling him “Ritchie” in your “report,” instead of Kid Rock. Would you do that to any liberal singer who goes by a stage name? Would you call Ga Ga or Madonna by their given names or use their stage names in your writing? Since you are a left-wing sell0out, I’ll bet I can answer that.

  8. Hah, what a sack of crap article, pussy. so a handful of pathetic twitter users out of 200 million don’t like this, i’m sure he’ll lose sleep. Idiot

  9. What was it 4 tweets? That’s a movement? I find it interesting that there wasn’t this much outrage when Kendrick Lamar was asked to do the CFP championship game. He’s an obvious racist but they were singing his praises. My guess is if Kid Rock supported Hillary or Obama and their policies, they would have been just fine with it. Its also funny how NHL considered a white sport joked about by blacks everywhere are all of a sudden in an uproar when they choose a white person for their entertainment.

  10. It’s an ALL STAR game, not the politically correct “select for diversity instead of talent, game”. That one will be the following weekend on the frozen over San Francisco bay.

    1. Um, the rule about having a representative from every team means it absolutely is about diversity over talent.

  11. Kid Rock is a bad idea, but the NHL is full of bad ideas and has been actively implementing them for decades. This is one more for the list.

  12. Love how a bunch of white liberal idiots show their ass with articles like this and the commentary. In case you idiots haven’t heard KR is the least racist guy in this whole article, he has a half African American son and you won’t find a lot of hip hop artists calling him one either. You can tell these assholes aren’t even NHL fans either

    1. Well he used to have the Confederate Battle Flag (aka a symbol of racist anti-American traitors) at his concerts, so…

      1. Guy carries a confederate flag – “He must be racist!”

        Morons. It doesn’t mean the same to everyone, and ignorance of it’s meaning had a lot of people carrying the flag before it became synonymous with racism. It still really isn’t – it’s just a goddamn flag. I know an old black family in my neighborhood who had the flag above their fireplace. He saw it as a “South” thing, and he was proud to be a part of the southern culture. His ignorance of the history behind it didn’t make him racist, and it doesn’t make Kid Rock racist in and of itself. The blathering fools on both the left and right have made the Political correctness in this country a mockery of basic reason.

        1. “…before it became synonymous with racism. It still really isn’t – it’s just a goddamn flag.”

          Huh? It started synonymous with racism, because it was a flag that was originally flown by the armed forces of a racist separatist movement that fought against the founding ideals of America. Saying “it’s just a flag” while ignoring important context like why it was made and who it represented is obscurantist and makes your complaints that other people mock “basic reason” seem rather hypocritical.

  13. Holy crap. These comments are a microcosm of what’s so fucked up about politics these days – the extreme left and right both come off as idiotic morons. Seriously, read the comments below and see how little they actually know about the truth, yet spout off like they are dead set correct. These idiots either actually support Trump, who obviously has no sense of tact, or they attack him with wildly unfounded accusations that they “infer” from things he’s done or said. The idiots don’t even know they are idiots.

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