If you thought the NFL’s status as the king of American sports leagues would prevent it from pandering to authoritarian regimes for market access, you apparently underestimated just how much genocide is worth.

The NFL’s Home Marketing Area Program limits teams to marketing within 75 miles of their stadium, with regional exceptions. That has now been extended to foreign markets, with teams being granted marketing rights in Mexico, Canada, Brazil, and Australia, among others.

Naturally, one of those other countries is China. The Los Angeles Rams, who have the only Chinese American player in the league (safety Taylor Rapp), decided to make a play for the Chinese market. This has actually been in the works for some time: Rams Chief Operating Officer Kevin Demoff boasted that the team had planned a tour in China with Rapp in 2020 (you know, before China loosed COVID-19 on the world).

The Rams are valued at $4.8 billion and made $422 million in revenue last year. Despite the pandemic, the NFL earned nearly $10 billion in revenue in 2020, and the league inked a $113 billion media deal earlier this year. But that’s not enough. At a time when China is under more scrutiny than ever, the Rams and the league have decided to brush off the whole genocide thing for more money.

The NFL has certainly learned from the NBA and the International Olympic Committee. The league posted a map of the world that announced which teams will be able to market in which countries and erased Taiwan’s existence by including it as part of China under the Chinese flag. This comes as China is ramping up its threats to invade Taiwan.

The NFL is uniquely American, but there is no issue with it trying to grab a global footing (which it has been doing for years). But beginning the process of shilling for China now, amid its aggression toward its neighbors, the genocide of the Uyghurs, and the silencing of tennis player Peng Shuai, is a particularly gross and cynical money grab by both the league and the Rams.