The NFL seems to be going to great lengths lately to prove that its top priority is money.
The league recently fined three players for uniform violations. All three were attempting to honor their parents who had recently died.
Pittsburgh Steeler DeAngelo Williams had “Find the Cure” printed on his eye black along with a pink ribbon. While the NFL endorses certain uniform accessories to observe Breast Cancer Awareness Month during October, eye black apparently is not one of them – Williams was forced to pay $5,787.
Apparently, the NFL is only interested in advocating for breast cancer awareness when it gets a cut of the deal. Team supporters are encouraged to purchase the new pink merchandise every October.
For every $100 fans spend, the NFL profits $12.50. While the retailer and manufacturer get most of the pay, the American Cancer Society only receives 8 percent for cancer research. For a league that already makes nearly $10 billion a year, October is just another marketing opportunity, as shown by the NFL’s response to Williams.
In another eye black scandal, Williams’ Steelers teammate Cameron Heyward staged a faceoff with the league by refusing to stop wearing the words “Iron Head” to honor his late father. He racked up thousands of dollars in fines, ultimately surrendering and agreeing to honor his father in another way. Not only did the NFL dictate the course of his grief, but they also charged him for the trouble.
The league struck again last week when they fined Pittsburg Steeler William Gay for wearing purple cleats, the color of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, to advocate on behalf of his mother. When Gay was 7, his stepfather shot and killed his mother.
This is a league with a major domestic violence problem. As I wrote in my column arguing against the rehiring of Ray Rice, domestic violence accounts for nearly half the arrests for violent crimes in the NFL, compared to a 21 percent national average.
I hope the NFL knows what it’s doing and that the money is worth it, because every time it picks revenue over what is right, it takes a toll – especially when it comes to domestic violence. This is a league that is still allowing Greg Hardy to play for the Cowboys and Adrian Peterson to take the field for the Vikings – two players who committed domestic abuse in the past two years.
Immortalized forever in the Pro Football Hall of Fame are the likes of O.J. Simpson and Warren Sapp, who are widely known to be guilty of domestic violence, with Simpson widely believed to have murdered his wife in 1994.
What the NFL apparently wants to make abundantly clear is that it doesn’t care.
These off-field issues are simply not its problem. Whose problem is it? The countless women who have suffered at the hands of these players while the NFL stood casually on the sidelines, a mere bystander.
According to the International Business Times, in the five-year period between 1989 and 1994, 140 then-current and former football players – both at the college and professional level – were accused of domestic violence.
Time and time again, the NFL has set a precedent that it’s okay. You can still play, you can still get paid. Your jersey will still be a top seller, young boys will still idolize you. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, it seems, and the one time someone creates a break in the narrative, such as Gay, they’re punished.
Not all professional sports leagues are as tone-deaf. Major League Baseball held mandatory domestic violence awareness training for each of its teams during their spring training in March, a new approach motivated by high-profile cases such as that of Rice.
The NFL values players in regard to how much revenue they can bring in. The league’s bottom line is money – everything else is simply not its problem.