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The NFL, a league without scruples

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by slappy4428, Feb 6, 2007.

  1. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    Read this column by Rachel Blount in the Strib this morning... has some damn good thoughts and valid points...

    My favorite line: The NFL is the athletic equivalent of Wal-Mart. Its ethics might trouble us sometimes, but that isn't enough to make millions of us stop buying what it sells.

    http://www.startribune.com/10073/story/983288.html

    The NFL's imagemakers must have been beside themselves when Tony Dungy accepted the Lombardi Trophy Sunday night. The first black coach to win a Super Bowl -- and a dignified, clean-living guy to boot -- Dungy said he was proud to show a championship could be won the Lord's way.

    While NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell basked in that reflected glory, his legal goons made sure that the Super Bowl could not be watched in the Lord's house. League attorneys sent a letter to Fall Creek Baptist Church in Indianapolis, warning it that NFL rules prohibit public places from showing the game on TVs larger than 55 inches or on multiple screens. Churches all over the country canceled their parties; the wrath of the Almighty, it seems, pales in comparison to that of a coven of corporate lawyers.

    The church crackdown provided an appropriate close to a season of bad behavior and worse judgment in the NFL. To wit: Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman, suspended four games last season for a positive steroids test, will start in Saturday's Pro Bowl. Nine Bengals could be issued orange uniforms of a different sort after their arrests for various crimes. Former Patriots linebacker Ted Johnson revealed last week that multiple concussions, combined with pressure to return to the field quickly, have left him brain-damaged at age 34.

    Johnson's poignant story drowned in the league-approved hype over beer commercials and halftime celebrities. So did the call by ultimate tough guy Mike Ditka to provide better pensions for former players with ruined bodies. In a country in which baseball's problems are taken up by the federal government, the only public outrage generated among NFL fans seems to happen when the tailgater runs dry.
     
  2. outofplace

    outofplace Well-Known Member

    Some excellent points...except I have absolutely no problem with the NFL refusing to give a church special rights that it would deny any other public venue.They get their tax break. That's enough.
     
  3. bigpern23

    bigpern23 Well-Known Member

    Personally, I don't see how the NFL has a right to tell anyone how big of a TV they can put a game on. If a bar is paying for the NFL package, or for just straight cable, it is paying for the right to view what is on those stations. If said bar went out and bought a 70-inch screen, what gives the NFL the right to say they have to put the game on one of their smaller screens?

    Excellent column by Rachel Blount. I couldn't agree with it more.
     
  4. D-Backs Hack

    D-Backs Hack Guest

    In a related item, not a single NFL player lost sleep on the night of ESPN's report.
     
  5. slappy4428

    slappy4428 Active Member

    Since it's on free TV anyway, who the fuck is the NFL to dictate to any facility whether or not it can be shown on a screen of its approval?
     
  6. zeke12

    zeke12 Guest

    I'd love to see the NFL try to enforce that rule.

    Nice column by Blount.
     
  7. leo1

    leo1 Active Member

    if i'm not mistaken, anyone showing the game to a large group - such as a bar - needs a special license from the NFL. as i understand the issue, the churches were apparently trying to show the game to large numbers of people without obtaining this special license. so the ban has to be enforced uniformly. otherwise you'd get a bunch of nuts claiming to have a "church" trying to show the game without paying for the license.

    i could be wrong. i know you need this special license for getting NFL ticket to show to groups, but i'm not sure about showing it off free TV. but you know that old "this broadcast may not be re-transmitted without the express written consent..." thing? i think that's what we're talking about here.
     
  8. JR

    JR Well-Known Member

    All you need to know about the NFL: no guaranteed contracts.
     
  9. heyabbott

    heyabbott Well-Known Member

    Is any starter actually going to show up. Ray-Ray was a fill in for an injured players, then stepped out.
     
  10. RokSki

    RokSki New Member

    "The NFL is the athletic equivalent of Wal-Mart. Its ethics might trouble us sometimes, but that isn't enough to make millions of us stop buying what it sells."

    That's a damn good line. I might have to 'borrow' it. :)
     
  11. Beef03

    Beef03 Active Member

    This really is more encouragement than anything fopr them to use steroids. A built-in excuse to skip out on the worst game of the year that no one watches anyways. No more having to, ahem Urlacher, fake a toe in injury.
     
  12. Birdscribe

    Birdscribe Active Member

    And a salary/free-agent structure set to wipe out the league's middle class.

    Great column by Blount.
     
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