Papa John’s CEO John Schnatter made headlines on Wednesday after blaming his company’s falling sales numbers on the NFL’s handling of their players’ protests against racial injustice. CNBC reports that this is an interesting theory of correlation concerning the bad pizza giant’s woes since another pizza giant, Pizza Hut, seems to be doing just fine.
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However, the pizza division of Yum Brands said Thursday that it is "not seeing any impact" from NFL player protests on its business in the third or fourth quarters this year.
In fact, sales at Pizza Hut are doing quite well. On Thursday the brand posted its fifth consecutive quarter of positive same-store sales growth. The brand saw growth of 1 percent, exceeding forecasts of a 0.7 percent decline in the third quarter.
"We're not seeing any impact from any of that on our business," the company said during an earnings conference call Thursday.
Pizza Hut has also been promising to upgrade their restaurants and equipment. Maybe people peacefully protesting injustice aren’t responsible for pizza sales? Who knew.