Next Man Up: The Exploitative Nature of the NFL
Before I begin, I’d like to make one thing clear: I am not a football hater. On the contrary, I really enjoy the sport. The dedication true fans show to the game is, in my opinion, comparable to the pious nature of Catholics. Anticipation builds all week until the holy hours on Sunday arrive. Proper ways to demonstrate loyalty and faith vary, but for me they include sitting on the couch for hours, snacking excessively, and screaming at family members for breaking frivolous superstitions. In its pure form, football is a game that allows our primal instincts of competitive aggression and survival to be fulfilled before our eyes. Yet football at the professional level does not exist in its pure form, and hasn’t for some time now.
The National Football League (NFL) is a business, and like the Catholic Church’s downfall from power in the 16th century, greedy interests threaten the sport’s sanctity. The league’s lack of tolerance for player activism has caused tensions in recent years, going back to 2016, when former quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers Colin Kaepernick protested police brutality in the United States by taking a knee during the pre-game performance of the national anthem. The impact of Kaepernick’s gesture was felt beyond the sidelines, polarizing the American people into two camps: those who felt it was disrespectful to people serving in the armed forces, and those who viewed it as a peaceful act of expression against injustice.
Controversy ensued when the following year President Trump called upon NFL executives to dismiss any “son of a b*tch” — referring to players- that chose to protest the state of racial affairs in America by demonstrating during the national anthem. Though his comments were not generally well received, the President’s diversion of attention towards player activism brought the NFL under a level of political scrutiny that is usually not reserved for sports. Football and other sports act as a refuge for its viewers, a place where they don’t necessarily expect- or want- to grapple with society’s ethical dilemmas. People are most comfortable with the expectation that players are meant to entertain with their spectacles of athletic prowess and nothing more. However, this sort of detachment is what allows for the misdeeds against athletes, especially in the NFL.
The suggestion that athletes should not deviate from their role in the world of sports reflects a harmful sentiment that perpetuates the dehumanization of players. It disregards the fact that pro-athletes are multidimensional people like the rest of us, and that they have a set of experiences that entitle them to freely speak up on social issues should they choose to. The masses listen to what famous people have to say, and silencing African-American athletes with a platform eliminates an outlet for the voices of oppressed communities. Add the fact that no NFL team owners are black while the majority of NFL athletes are, and it is clear how the present state of professional football reflects a divide that is racial in nature. There is a void between the NFL front offices- primarily white- and the players- primarily black- that stems from sheer lack of understanding. Team owners and executives are not affected the same way by issues that face the African-American community, and this broken empathetic link between those in management positions and their players is a major factor in why peaceful protests are so restricted. The disconnect is part of a larger pattern that appears throughout the world of entertainment, in which prominent and successful black figures struggle to receive recognition and support from their industries when they address social issues.
At the Grammys, hip hop artists and music industry experts that vote on award winners have had a tumultuous relationship similar to that of NFL athletes and owners. While hip hop- a music style with definitive African-American origins- has held a popular hold on western culture for decades, the genre has not been frequently honored at a more prestigious level. As “The National” puts it, “the Grammys [have] continued to sideline hip-hop into genre-specific categories, while handing out major awards to acts who, respectfully speaking, are not part of the global cultural conversation.” In 2017, the Grammys vowed to increase the diversity of its nomination committees to ensure “relevancy and quality control” of music chosen for the prestigious awards. Yet “inexplicably…it was Bruno Mars’ catchy yet ultimately safe and unremarkable 24K Magic that took out the category [of 2017 Album of the Year]” The same year, rap artist Kendrick Lamar was snubbed from a Grammy award, and instead went on to win a Pulitzer Prize for his album DAMN, suggesting that “a panel of academics were far more aware of its [the album’s] quality than a group of music industry tastemakers and insiders.”
Of his historic victory, Lamar says he is glad that people are beginning to“see this [his music] not just as vocal lyrics, but to see that this is really pain, this is really hurt, this is really true stories of our [African-American] lives on wax.” Yet this respect and acknowledgement is missing from the industry that profits off of his work. By failing to recognize hip hop artists that explore controversy within their music, or by discouraging outspoken players from protesting similar issues, business leaders express that they value African-Americans only for their commercial value. As executives reflect the best interests of their companies, who serve the people, this reveals a damning truth about our society.
The culture of American entertainment is exploitative. We hold people from underprivileged backgrounds up on a pedestal but turn our backs to them when they try to bring to light problems that their communities face. The National Football League nurtures this ideology and is structured around it. In the corporate world of entertainment, one thing is for sure: black lives matter only for as long as they can generate a profit. Anything that deviates from that model is bad for business, and if something is bad for business it is cut. People are expendable. The NFL used Colin Kaepernick as an example of this; the once Super Bowl champion was let go after 2016 and has not played in a game since. His act of defiance has derailed his career, but as for the NFL? They pulled the next man up, filled his spot, and moved onwards without looking back.
