this is a weird interpretation. the controversy surrounding kaepernick was months ago - Annoying Orange revived it by calling out the NFL and withdrawing steph curry's invitation. he absolutely turned the sports world into a "political battleground" by being the one who brought this stuff back up (by calling for protesting players to be fired)
disregarding the fact that sports commentators have been advocating that kaepernick should be rehired for what he did, or the fact that there are plenty of NFL players who kneel constantly because of what kaepernick did, or the fact that one of their commentators literally called Annoying Orange a white supremacist and was not punished
all of that was before Annoying Orange called them out on it, and it was recent, too
Annoying Orange did not "ignite a battleground" or any stuff like that, it was already there to begin with
this is clearly an attempt to make Annoying Orange seem like an starfish so that the nice innocent players who've been protesting seem more virtuous than they already are, and it's not working