What’s that bad taste in Subway’s mouth? It’s the bitter flavor of a fast-shrinking franchise and the fall-out from hiring the notorious Megan Rapinoe as a national pitch-woman. Subway is losing franchises hand over foot, and its Rapinoe ad campaign is getting some of the blame for the company driving customers away. 
The New York Post reported Subway lost 1,043 stores in 2021. Josh Kosman wrote of the struggling sandwich giant lately tussling with franchisees over controversial ad campaigns and allegations of corrupt regional managers.
The Rapinoe ad campaign “drew complaints from franchisees last year over the hire of soccer star Megan Rapinoe, whose perceived anti-American views reportedly rubbed some customers the wrong way.”
Breitbart writer Warner Todd Huston said: “Coming on the heels of the 2015 debacle when national spokesman Jared Fogle was convicted and went to jail on child porn charges, and just as Subway was losing a record number of locations, the company’s chiefs in its Milford, Connecticut, headquarters hired Rapinoe hot off the U.S. National Women’s Soccer Team’s loss of the gold at the Tokyo Olympics.”
Franchise customers were so irate with Subway’s Rapinoe ad campaign that they organized a boycott. They were peeved that she derided her country while on foreign soil for the 2019 women’s World Cup soccer tournament.
One unhappy customer taped this message to a Subway door: “The ad should be pulled and done with.”
An Arizona franchise owner, in 2021, stated, “Spending our money to make a political statement is completely and totally out of bounds.”
Another Subway location owner complained about how tiring it got to repeatedly apologize to customers upset by the Rapinoe ads.
Subway’s national office did not respond to complaints from local stores. The ads were, nevertheless, ended quickly.
“Regardless, the company’s foothold in the U.S. market continues to slip, and hiring people who are perceived as anti-American like Rapinoe is not helping reverse the decline,” Huston concluded.
Subway has been losing momentum for years, and the Rapinoe ad definitely gave the company a big kick in the shorts.
Say it again: go woke, go broke!
