Through Pro Football’s Looking Glass: The Difference between Individuality and Celebrity
“Know the difference between famous and great.” -The late, great defensive lineman Deacon Jones, NFL Hall of Famer, member of the vaunted Fearsome Foursome and the first to coin the phrase sack the QB.
Pro football fanatics know about the alarm going off in the media — and in NFL boardrooms — about diminishing television ratings. Political protests and injuries are assigned some of the blame for turning away young players and fans of all ages. Still, the data about the direction of public interest in pro football is unclear. Trends are inconsistent. And musings about the causes and solutions run the gamut.
One school of thought is that the NFL should follow the lead of the NBA and better promote the individuality of its players.[1] Let NFL players build their brand, like the NBA allows its players to do. Let them hawk their own shoes and say what they want on social media. Free them to gain as much individual attention as possible with their fan bases. Let them be celebrities. The resulting increase in attention will raise the NFL tide again accordingly.
So the thinking goes. And it’s wrong.
This school of thought confuses the difference between individuality and celebrity. Worse, it fosters the very thing most self-destructive about pro football in the 21st Century: the emphasis on celebrity. Because celebrity, different from individuality, is the antithesis of teamwork, the ultimate touchstone on which pro football used to be based and the reason pro football used to dominate the American sports landscape.
To be sure, the NFL is not at fault for our “look at me” culture. But as long as what is supposed to be the greatest team sport aims to leverage more attention with a celebrity-driven strategy, the more it will kill the connection with its fan base. Indeed, beyond lower TV ratings, evidence is coming in. The NFL is now viewed as one of the most divisive brands in America.
Celebrity depends on the attention of others. It has a self-life of mere minutes these days. Hence, those who crave it need to replenish it constantly. Its primacy thus diminishes other goals, team goals in particular when it comes to the celebrity of an NFL player.
Unlike celebrity, individuality does not depend on the attention of others. In fact, the stronger the individual, the less reliant one is on the attention of others. Robust and authentic individuality is a perfect characteristic for a teammate. For it takes a strong individual to understand that s/he is an important part of something greater — the team. Let me emphasize that. A quality football player understands both his own importance and his service to the greater good of the team. And for a professional football player, that greatness is far more valuable in the long run than any celebrity-driven claim to fame.
The fine line between celebrity and individuality cannot be legislated. But the NFL and the Players Association would do well to wrap their heads around it for the benefit of the team sport on which they both depend.
Michael McCormack, The Born Fanatic
[1] See e.g., https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/10/18/nfl-anthem-protests-demonstrations-roger-goodell-players-social-media and https://theundefeated.com/features/nba-nfl-success
