The latest NFL player tomfoolery - Daunte Stallworth running into a pedestrian with his car and killing them - will probably be a footnote in about a week, it's just another item put on the long list of player misbehavior. And while the NBA and MLB get hammered for off-court and field incidents, it seems that NFL can always snake itself around these potential PR black eyes.
Steriods - baseball's tainted, but nobody talks about Shawn Merriman of the San Diego Chargers taking steroids anymore. Nevermind that the 1970s Steelers have been rumored to be fueled by steroids (Thanks Jim Haslett for spilling the beans).
Thuggery - the NBA always gets a bad rap for this, but you don't see NBA players involved in IHOP holdups or shall we even tell the sad saga of Pacman Jones again?
And it just gets me, the best PR agency in the world couldn't get the NFL out of this crap, and yet the league gets away with having serious character issues. Why?
Because we love football and we don't care. It's an easier sport to follow and you have a lot more football fans out there than baseball and basketball fans.
Bear with me now.
Football is a much easier sport to be a fan of because games are once a week - that's all the time commitment you need. Usually Sunday afternoons when you aren't doing anything at all. And since there is only 16 games in the regular season, these games mean a lot.
Meanwhile the NBA and MLB have 82 and 162 game schedules with games on all week and at all times. Trying to catch all of those games is impossible as a fan and you're pretty much relegated to just watching the SportsCenter highlights. And since a singular game really doesn't matter that much, there's really nothing for the casual fan to latch onto here.
Since it's more of a casual fan aspect than other sports - which if you really want to know a lot about the NBA and MLB, you've got to do your homework like you're getting into Harvard to really enjoy the season - whereas football doesn't take as much heavy lifting to follow.
Now that being said, when a player does something terrible, like kill someone while driving under the influence, it would probably pretty easy for casual fans to not even know the player is on their team. Hence, the media fallout isn't as intense, because not as many individuals are griping about it. I mean they know this team is good at running the ball and can defend the pass but do they know who their third string running back is?
They don't care about that individual player, they've been conditioned to just worry about the team that they occasionally watch during the weekends.
Meanwhile, if you pull a baseball fan off the street, somebody who says they love the sport, chances are they can name off their favorite team's pitching rotation and lineup.
If one of their players does something wrong, they're going to write blogs, send emails, make comments on message boards, ect. ect. Because baseball fans have to be involved more to really enjoy the season, hence they'll have more of an emotional connection to the happenings inside the league.
Do you know a casual football fan that can name the starters for his team? Sure he knows Manning, Brady and Ray Lewis. But can he name the backups on his favorite team?
Hence, would he even car when a singular player gets in trouble? No. Not really.
Hence the NFL has a built in PR buffer. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go rob an IHOP.
Steriods - baseball's tainted, but nobody talks about Shawn Merriman of the San Diego Chargers taking steroids anymore. Nevermind that the 1970s Steelers have been rumored to be fueled by steroids (Thanks Jim Haslett for spilling the beans).
Thuggery - the NBA always gets a bad rap for this, but you don't see NBA players involved in IHOP holdups or shall we even tell the sad saga of Pacman Jones again?
And it just gets me, the best PR agency in the world couldn't get the NFL out of this crap, and yet the league gets away with having serious character issues. Why?
Because we love football and we don't care. It's an easier sport to follow and you have a lot more football fans out there than baseball and basketball fans.
Bear with me now.
Football is a much easier sport to be a fan of because games are once a week - that's all the time commitment you need. Usually Sunday afternoons when you aren't doing anything at all. And since there is only 16 games in the regular season, these games mean a lot.
Meanwhile the NBA and MLB have 82 and 162 game schedules with games on all week and at all times. Trying to catch all of those games is impossible as a fan and you're pretty much relegated to just watching the SportsCenter highlights. And since a singular game really doesn't matter that much, there's really nothing for the casual fan to latch onto here.
Since it's more of a casual fan aspect than other sports - which if you really want to know a lot about the NBA and MLB, you've got to do your homework like you're getting into Harvard to really enjoy the season - whereas football doesn't take as much heavy lifting to follow.
Now that being said, when a player does something terrible, like kill someone while driving under the influence, it would probably pretty easy for casual fans to not even know the player is on their team. Hence, the media fallout isn't as intense, because not as many individuals are griping about it. I mean they know this team is good at running the ball and can defend the pass but do they know who their third string running back is?
They don't care about that individual player, they've been conditioned to just worry about the team that they occasionally watch during the weekends.
Meanwhile, if you pull a baseball fan off the street, somebody who says they love the sport, chances are they can name off their favorite team's pitching rotation and lineup.
If one of their players does something wrong, they're going to write blogs, send emails, make comments on message boards, ect. ect. Because baseball fans have to be involved more to really enjoy the season, hence they'll have more of an emotional connection to the happenings inside the league.
Do you know a casual football fan that can name the starters for his team? Sure he knows Manning, Brady and Ray Lewis. But can he name the backups on his favorite team?
Hence, would he even car when a singular player gets in trouble? No. Not really.
Hence the NFL has a built in PR buffer. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go rob an IHOP.
The blood tests have not came back yet so there is no proof Stallworth was intoxicated. This could be just an accident. Before accusing someone you should have the facts.
ReplyDeleteWhere did I say Stallworth was drunk in this article?
ReplyDeleteNow that being said, when a player does something terrible, like kill someone while driving under the influence, it would probably pretty easy for casual fans to not even know the player is on their team.
ReplyDeleteYou wrote "Now that being said, when a player does something terrible, like kill someone while driving under the influence, it would probably pretty easy for casual fans to not even know the player is on their team." I read that and it seemed like you are implying that Stallworth was intoxicated. All in all I think it was a great article and I have to agree with you that football players get away with alot more than any other athelete.
ReplyDelete