For decades, the National Football League's business model has been predicated on presenting an athletic spectacle so thrilling that fans were willing to ignore the dark side of the game--violence, antiquated gender roles, and greed, which places profits above all else.
But the past few days have provided more evidence of football's heinous underbelly than fans can ignore.
With the NFL already reeling from the Ray Rice scandal, news spread Friday that Vikings running back Adrian Peterson had been indicted on a charge of felony child abuse for allegedly beating his 4-year-old son with a tree branch. A few hours later, the NFL admitted in federal court documents that nearly one-third of retired players will develop long-term cognitive problems and at "notably younger ages" than the rest of the population.
At this point in any other season, our focus would be on the games. Instead, media members and fans are discussing football as a troubled moral undertaking.
Hard-core fans will surely cry foul. The conventional wisdom is that football is too big to fail. The league's revenue approached $10 billion last year, and sponsors have been sitting tight. But the flow of that revenue depends on fan loyalty. While the league has done a remarkable job of growing its fan base over the past decade, many of these fans are new to football. It may not take much for them to turn away.
Even jock pundits have been unable to ignore the ill omens. And political leaders are entering the fray, too. Last week, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) suggested that lawmakers might revisit the "broad anti-trust exemptions granted [to the league] by Congress, and hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer benefit." Thanks to deals cut with Congress in the 1960s, the NFL enjoys tax-exempt status as a "business league" and operates as a legal monopoly.
Just as worrying is the fact that major sponsors such as Marriott and FedEx have announced that they are monitoring the league's conduct in the Rice matter. The disturbing details emerging about Peterson's savage punishment of his son will no doubt induce further jitters in corporate boardrooms. And the prevalence of cognitive damage to former players is potentially a much more damaging story.
More than a century ago, boxing was among the nation's most popular sports. Eventually, the masses rejected its overt savagery and it became a fringe sport. Football nearly disappeared in 1905, after 18 young men were killed on the gridiron. Instead, at the urging of President Theodore Roosevelt, the game underwent major reforms, which included legalizing the forward pass, a rule change that quickly led to a more wide-open and therefore less dangerous game.
The time has come for President Barack Obama to stop serving as the nation's fan-in-chief and to initiate a discussion about how to reduce the game's violence, as well as its perverse role in our educational system. It's time for fans to take a stand, too. The future of football will be determined not by a government crackdown but by individual fans who confront the brutal realities of their favorite sport and act as their own consciences recommend.
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Steve Almond is an author and former sports reporter.
Editorial on 09/16/2014