PRO-FOOTBALL’S P.R. NIGHTMARE
THE governing bodies for global athletics organizations — such as soccer’s FIFA and the International Olympic Committee — tend to go the way of most centralized power centers in a fallen world: They become corrupt. With billions of dollars at stake and a small number of handpicked stooges calling the shots, FIFA and the IOC end up looking more like a gaggle of USSRera commissars than a competent board of directors comprised of folks who simply love the respective sports they govern.
While no strangers to political corruption and bureaucratic stagnation, Americans tend to look at professional sports in our country as the last true bastion of meritocracy. Even with all of the gambling, the fantasy leagues and astronomical beer prices at stadiums, we still want to view the games we love through the lenses of nostalgia and youthful innocence.
Sports are supposed to be where we turn for an escape from the pessimism and cynicism of jobs report numbers, campaignfinance fraud and drought warnings. Sports are where our kids learn about teamwork. For weekend warriors, they are physically and even emotionally satisfying in ways that few other things can be.
But when an organization as massive, influential and lucrative as the National Football League has a multiyear run of negative coverage and embarrassing scandals like the one it currently finds itself in, melodramatic films about coverups and conspiracies (that feature blowhard monologues from the likes of Alec Baldwin) are inevitable.
“Concussion,” starring Will Smith and set to drop in US theaters on Christmas Day, is the “based on a true story” account of Dr. Bennet Omalu, the first doctor to identify the dangerous effects of head trauma among former NFL players. Controversy surrounding the film is heating up in the press this month after a recent New York Times piece accused Sony Pictures of deleting scenes that would make the NFL look “excessively callous.”
It is difficult to ascertain to what extent a film about a powerful entity is ever influenced by said entity. “Zero Dark Thirty,” the spellbinding 2012 depiction of the hunt for (and eventual killing of ) Osama bin Laden, is a recent example of a film that ruffled feathers at the highest levels of the federal government and military.
Some critics accused it of sugarcoating unfavorable facts, others of going too far in its use of creative license. But the “reasonable man” moviegoer who attended a screening of “Zero Dark Thirty” loved the film and found it to be, on the whole, fairandbalanced.
Or is that merely what they want you to think? (Cue conspiratorial music.)
While we will have to wait until Christmas to see what Sony Pic tures and Will Smith have done to besmirch professional football, one thing remains abundantly clear: The National Football League is in a publicrelations mess.
It is not onthefield corruption, offthefield embezzled funds or the bizarre awarding of prominent events within the sport to cities that do not make any sense that plagues the NFL. So in those specific instances, the NFL is not very much like FIFA or the IOC.
But when it comes to perceived institutional incompetence at the highest levels, as well as rumors of intimidation directed at those daring to criticize the league, the comparison isn’t so farfetched.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is on a losing streak not even Willie Nelson would want to write a song about. Goodell oversees a vast empire and yet seems hellbent on selecting the worst option at every turn of this embarrassing “Choose Your Own Adventure” novel.
Every sports league on the planet has bad actors within its ranks. The NFL is comprised of 32 teams that boast over 50 players per squad. Football is a violent sport played by large, aggressive men who enjoy smashing into each other at top speeds.
None of this excuses the disgusting string of revelations about spousal abuse, assault and DUI charges levied at NFL players (and coaches).
But none of these facts adequately explain the ineptitude and antagonistic attitude emanating from the league’s top brass. For that, we have human nature and bureaucratic insularity to thank.
Perhaps, like FIFA and the IOC, the National Football League now sees itself as untouchable, fulfilling Lord Acton’s observation that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”