Hey, sports, do the right thing. Some suggestions:

• Hey, protest protesters, stay away.

You swore that if NFL players didn’t stop protesting, you would never watch another game. Some of you are sneaking back. TV ratings are suspiciously high. Many fans in the stands at the Chiefs-Texans game in Kansas City loudly booed players making a pregame gesture of solidarity.

Come on, now, you promised to go away. Some of us who don’t share your dislike of protests at least admired your commitment and resolve. It’s the honor system, and you did give your word. No crawling back!

• Hey, MLB team owners, tell Steve Cohen to take a hike.

Cohen will buy the Mets, pending approval by 23 of the 30 owners. In 2013, Cohen’s hedge fund, SAC Capital, agreed to plead guilty to insider trading and was forced to shut down and pay a $1.8 billion fine. Cohen wasn’t charged, but he agreed to a two-year ban from the securities industry for failure to properly supervise his top people.

We’ve all got skeletons in our closets, but that one requires a closet the size of the Goodyear Blimp hangar.

Oh, Cohen’s current firm — Point72 Asset Management — is being sued as a workplace hostile to women.

Is this the kind of guy you want to reward by bestowing upon him the status and prestige that comes with that membership?

• Hey, sports, stop the anthems.

You wore out the national anthem by overuse, rendering it tedious by playing it before every event. It became political with the shaming of anyone not following the unwritten rules of respect.

When the anthem became a focus of protest, the official and unofficial reaction was punishment of players who peacefully protested. Now the NFL has added “Lift Every Voice and Sing” — the unofficial Black national anthem — to the pregame ceremony. Beautiful and meaningful song, but what about other maligned minorities? And what happens if white players take a knee during the Black national anthem?

There’s no easy way out, but the least painful and most logical solution is no anthems.

Forced patriotism is false patriotism.

• Hey, team owners, pay your workers.

It’s almost as if all the pro team owners made a secret pact to limit the “help” they gave to their part-time, game-day employees — ushers, janitors, hot-dog vendors. Across the board, teams gave these folks a one-time check ranging from $500 to $1,200.

These are the people who make the show go. They are hurting. Why not do more for them, owners?

According to a story in The Nation, it would cost MLB $285 million to pay the 39,000 various stadium employees what they would have earned this season. That’s $9.5 million per team.

That’s a lot of dough, but consider: The Nation says the 30 MLB teams are worth over $55 billion combined, and the 30 principal owners are worth $78 billion. Charles Johnson was part of the group that bought the Giants for $100 million in 1993 and the team is worth $3.1 billion now.

Many of the folks who sold the beer and scrubbed the toilets are losing their homes or apartments. Many are missing meals. Approximately zero of you pro sports team owners will become homeless or hungry. You are in a position to do more to help.

The Nation’s argument: “The 39,000 (MLB) stadium workers are in no better or worse shape than the tens of millions of other low-wage workers (who lost jobs in the pandemic). The only difference is that they work for an industry that is one of the most visible in the US economy, that the teams they work for are among the most profitable corporations in the country, and that the owners who control those companies are among the wealthiest individuals in the nation.”

Brothers (and sisters), can you spare a dime?

• Hey, Roger Goodell, give Kaepernick a real tryout.

Last year you set up a bizarre, last-minute, take-it-or-leave-it tryout day for Colin Kaepernick. Truly a clown show. Kaepernick bailed, held his own session, everyone looked bad.

Set up a real showcase, commish, with Kaepernick’s input. Make it open and public, so we can all better judge if teams are giving him a fair appraisal. Make it a two-fer, bring in defensive back Eric Reid, who took a knee along with Kaepernick and who is now also mysteriously out of work.

• Hey, Kaepernick, rock the vote.

You made it clear that you don’t vote. You said four years ago, “You know, I think it would be hypocritical of me to vote. I said from the beginning I was against oppression, I was against the system of oppression. I’m not going to show support for that system. And to me, the oppressor isn’t going to allow you to vote your way out of your oppression.”

Colin, maybe your viewpoint has changed in four years under a president who is opposed to you personally, to peaceful protests at football games, to police reform, to BLM.

You’ve done a lot of good work, Mr. Kaepernick, but wouldn’t it boost your cause to have allies and not enemies within that corrupt system? If you speak out soon, you could galvanize a lot of voters. How about just this once?

Scott Ostler is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: sostler@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @scottostler