Alan Truex: Can Goodell prove Mark Cuban wrong on NFL ‘implosion’?
Four years ago, Mark Cuban, owner of a basketball team, the Dallas Mavericks, said the National Football League was “hoggy,” full of greed and itself. It was ten years away from “implosion” that will lead to its demise. His prediction, which could not have been more self-serving, seemed laughable at the time.
No longer.
Back in 2014, when Cuban was going Cassandra, an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that most Americans – 58% to be exact — were “close followers” of football. The same poll a month ago had the percentage down to 49.
Compared to all other sporting entertainment, football is still very hot. A Gallup poll last month showed it being the favorite sport of 37% of American adults, with basketball 11%, baseball 9% and soccer surging to 7%, passing hockey, car racing, horse racing, golf and tennis.
But football has become love-it or hate-it entertainment. Polls show 40% of Americans now have an unfavorable view of football, making it both our most popular sport and also the most unpopular.
Its popularity could continue sliding in this off-season, depending on what commissioner Roger Goodell does to reshape a sport’s image that disturbingly resembles its reality: gruesome violence and injuries on the playing field and off.
Here’s a radical idea for pro football: Copy the Budweiser playbook.
Nobody can convince me that Budweiser’s product is less dangerous than the NFL’s. But Bud soothes us with candor, acknowledges the potential tragedy of guzzling alcohol, happily urges restraint.
The NFL hasn’t figured out how to cope with the hazards of its sport. Denial is not a river that can carry people very far. Anheuser Busch, through clever marketing, makes us believe it’s a corporation genuinely concerned about our safety. NFL? Not nearly so much.
Cuban linked football’s pending doom to concussion. He correctly foresaw that many parents would forbid their children from playing tackle football.
But from an economics standpoint, brain disease may not be the NFL’s most pressing concern. The fan base has been torn apart by civil war.
Goodell watched, mutely, as Colin Kaepernick began a movement that may have inspired gains in justice — fewer young black men shot by cops – but wrecked his football career and all but severed the Trump wing of the fan base. Recall the vice president bailing from an Indianapolis Colts game when he saw players kneeling.
Kaepernick meant no disrespect for the flag or the republic for which it stands or the men and women who died to keep it standing. He thought he was opposing police barbarity, not military aggression or defense. But his message got twisted, and he wasn’t articulate enough to straighten it out.
He may not have grasped the full meaning of lyrics extolling the steadfast defense of a brilliantly constructed Baltimore fort (crowned by a 42-foot-flag) that blocked invasion by the mightiest foreign power.
To many, The Star-Spangled Banner pays homage not just to one heroic night but to all those brave Americans who over the course of two centuries of too-frequent warfare have offered the supreme sacrifice to protect us from our enemies.
Yes we coulda had an anthem that salutes our less bellicose virtues. But if Kaepernick and Goodell can’t learn to deal with what we have, they will be the ones expunged, not Francis Scott Bleeping Key. Doesn’t matter how many he tried to enslave in the land of the free.
Kaepernick was in over his head, as almost anyone would have been. He was no MLK or RFK or Gandhi or Mandela, but I was hoping Goodell could work with him.
So of course, Goodell fled from the issue, as he did from Ray Rice and domestic violence. It was Me Too – after everybody else.
Goodell and Kaepernick were supposed to meet but never did. Looks like they will meet in court. Kaepernick is suing Goodell and his league for colluding to keep him from playing. Expect more polarization, more people deciding pro football isn’t much fun anymore.
Personally, I doubt collusion occurred. I doubt there’s a smoking gun or a smoking email or a smoking tweet.
Every NFL team with the possible exceptions of true-blue Seattle and Oakland will avoid Kaepernick because of box-office devastation he might cause. I know too many white men over 40 who stopped watching the games because of the mostly black protest. That annoys them far more than concussion.
With 65% of NFL players being African-American, Goodell must provide a platform for expression that doesn’t snub the flag or the anthem. He could order teams to stay in the locker room until the anthem is finished. Cuban has proposed video messaging before games or during halftime. This is not a hopeless dilemma.
Again, look at Budweiser, with its welcoming Super Bowl ad embracing Puerto Ricans as Americans who are as worthy of love and support as Texans, Floridians and Californians.
I haven’t seen any polling, but I’m guessing Budweiser is more popular now than the NFL. Inclusion sells.
Goodell remains in power because TV revenues soared from contracts he shrewdly negotiated. But as Eric Winston, president of the Players Association, observed, staying with the alcohol metaphor: “You could be the worst bartender at spring break, but you’d still be killing it.”
We coulda had a better commissioner, one who’s more like Pete Rozelle, accessible to media and players, committed to fairness and justice or at least appearing to be. Rozelle was a conciliatory man. He was consistently outmaneuvered by Al Davis, but the two men hugged when Rozelle retired at 63.
Although Jerry Jones and several other owners may wish him gone, Goodell is not going anywhere. He recently signed a contract that extends him to 2024. Lots of time to confront the challenges he shirks.
Here’s one that won’t go away: The Washington Redskins should have changed their name decades ago. How long do we wait for the team’s owner, Daniel Snyder, to have a road-to-Damascus epiphany? Goodell has urged him to join the 21st century but hasn’t pushed enough.
The Cleveland Indians are ashamed of their Chief Wahoo logo – red man’s Black Sambo. They’re phasing it out, albeit slowly so they don’t alarm The Base. But the NFL takes no step to revise the demeaning brand of its franchise in our nation’s capital. So we will continue to see protestors wherever that team plays.
Most issues that plague the NFL – assaults on women, guns everywhere (Reuben Foster the latest case), police brutality, racism, drug abuse, children’s safety, polarization itself — also vex the rest of society (Parkland, Fla., the latest case).
There’s an opportunity here for the gridiron to end gridlock. Goodell has shown he’s capable of leadership. He did resolve the touchdown celebration conflict. He’s taken action to clarify what a catch is. He allocated $100 million to concussion research and almost as much to social activism. But much more is needed. Hopefully we’ve seen only the beginning of his peacemaking legacy.