Multimodal Assignment: WTF, NFL?
Amelia Diamond and Emma Fantaccione
Script
Slide One
Emma: Hello, everyone. Today’s show is a little heavy: we’re asking, WTF, NFL?
Amy: Yeah, we’ll be talking about the NFL’s domestic violence stated policy versus it’s execution as well as comparing the NFL to the NBA.
Slide Two
Emma: Slight warning — this show contains some graphic content.
Slide Three
Amy: We’ll start in February 2014, when media outlet TMZ published video of Ray Rice, a running back for the Baltimore Ravens at the time, punching his then-fiancee in the face in a hotel elevator. The video was shocking for obvious reasons, but what was even worse was the punishment: in July, Rice was suspended for a mere two games.
Slide Four / Five
Emma: In August, the NFL announced a new domestic violence policy where players are suspended for six games without pay after the first incident and banned for life after the second. But it took the surfacing of a second video in September — also released by TMZ — of Rice assaulting Palmer, who was by this time his wife, for the Ravens to terminate Rice’s contract. Spectators and fans were left wondering why the NFL handled Rice’s clear displays of aggravated assault so poorly the first time around.
Slide Six
Amy: And it’s not as if that’s the only instance of an NFL athlete with domestic assault issues. According to ESPN’s Stats and Information board, the NFL has only upheld the six-game suspension policy for only two out of nine cases regarding domestic violence brought to the attention of the NFL. For instance, San Francisco 49er’s defensive, Ray McDonald, faced domestic assault charges after dragging his then girlfriend Kendra Scott out of her bed in the middle of the night, kneeing her in the stomach while she was pregnant with their child and leaving her with a black eye and bruises on her neck from choking her in August of 2014. The NFL received photographic evidence of the assault and did not suspend McDonald. The NFL allowed him to play until rape allegations came out. That’s when the Chicago Bears picked him up and he continued to play as a “free agent” until a second assault allegation involving Scott surfaced in 2015.
Similar situations have happened with the kicker for the New York Giants, Josh Brown and Ezekiel Elliott the running back for the Dallas Cowboys.
Slide Seven
Emma: Speaking of Ezekiel Elliott, his case was extremely convoluted. Elliott had several domestic violence claims against him over a period of over a year, but at one point the NFL’s private investigator, Kia Roberts, who has built a career off investigating domestic abuse cases, found him innocent. Even so, Goodell decided to suspend the Dallas Cowboys’ running back for six games, stating that his actions were unacceptable to the point that he is poorly representing the league. Elliott’s actions and verdict aside, it’s interesting that Goodell — who has no legal background and no involvement in the investigation — got to swoop in and make that call. Sounded like it was more of a PR thing than anything.
Amy: Yeah, it should be mentioned that the NFL works with state and federal courts when called upon, but the league’s decisions to assess or withhold punishment are mutually exclusive from the court’s decisions.
Slide Eight
Emma: Time and again, the NFL has failed to address the seemingly systematic symptoms of domestic violence within its clubs.
Slide Nine
Amy: Meanwhile, the NBA doesn’t have nearly as many or as high-profile instances of domestic abuse or assault, but when they do it’s generally handled differently. In October 2014, following the Ray Rice scandal, Charlotte Hornets forward Jeff Taylor pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor domestic violence charge after shoving and slapping his girlfriend in a Michigan hotel. After a thorough league investigation independent of that of law enforcement, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver issued Taylor a 24-game suspension, costing the player over half a million dollars in lost pay. Despite an outcry of opposition from the NBPA citing Collective Bargaining Agreement infringement, Silver upheld his sentencing.
Emma: The inner workings of the league’s legal system are murky at best. To better understand these decisions, let’s look at who’s doing the sentencing for personal conduct infractions and charges in professional sports:
Slide Ten
Amy: On the NFL’s side in football, Commissioner Roger Goodell oversees all issues relating to players and teams. He works in tandem with the Executive Committee, which includes one representative from each of the league’s 32 clubs — usually an owner or top officer. Both parties are informed by findings from the more than two dozen research committees that the league employs. It’s important to note that Roger Goodell has the most power in this setup and delivers all final sentencing.
Emma: Then we have the NFLPA, the National Football League Players Association, a labor union comprised of current and former players under the leadership of Executive Director DeMaurice Smith and President Eric Winston. The organization functions like any other union, negotiating salaries and rules on behalf of athletes.
Amy: Together through the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the NFL and the NFLPA hand down league fines and punishments.
Slide Eleven
Emma: The NBA also has a player’s union to represent the athletes in each of the 30 teams: the NBPA. The NBPA is headed by Executive Director Michele Roberts and President Chris Paul. The union is further informed by the Executive Committee and the Board of Player Representatives, which are both comprised of current players. Like the NFLPA, the NBPA helps negotiate grievances and salaries. The NBPA also stresses the importance of “assisting charity and community organizations” and “promoting the positive image and reputation of NBA players, both on and off the court.”
Amy: The NBA’s side has Commissioner Adam Silver holding final jurisdiction over the player’s punishment, but he is also informed by unspecified research committees and the Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NBPA. When a charge is assessed to a player, the player has the option to seek counsel from the recently-implemented Policy Committee before the committee approaches the player. This committee is made up of two people from the NBA, two people from the union, and three independent experts in domestic violence, sexual assault, and child abuse. This committee creates a treatment plan for the player, and if this plan is ignored or violated, Adam Silver is left to make a more impactful decision.
Emma: Under the Joint NBA/NBPA Policy on Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, and Child Abuse, pleading or being found guilty at a trial or pleading no contest constitutes violating the treatment plan. Adam Silver can deliver sentencing in these cases, but cannot punish players who have been acquitted after a trial. It’s also worth noting that Adam Silver does have a legal background, unlike contemporary Roger Goodell.
Amy: So clearly, it’s complicated. While each league has mostly similar policy and governance body makeup and stated objectives, the action taken differs largely. While it seems like the NFL has historically punished players based on public perception and outcry — like Goodell’s sudden extension of Ray Rice’s suspension from two games to indefinitely — the NBA generally takes a more progressive and proactive approach.
Emma: To be honest, though, the NBA isn’t perfect, and the fact is that both leagues are giant money-making machines that stand to lose a great deal of the public’s respect and dollars by mishandling a domestic violence scandal. Furthermore, every action each league does or does not take is well-documented by mass media outlets, contributing to the general, ensuing frenzy. And there’s so much evidence showing that the media’s portrayal of the issue affects the public’s overall perception.
Slide Twelve
Amy: Right, and it’s obviously not limited to sports. One study published in the Austin Journal of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences stated that the “…media exposure of violence against women can also have certain untoward effects; it can desensitize people to social problems like domestic violence, making them seem less problematic than they really are and obfuscating the issues that are involved in them.”
Emma: Particularly with the NFL, we’re so used to domestic violence scandals and unresolved or unsatisfying verdicts and punishment that we don’t even a bat an eye when another surfaces. And the NFL’s tangled and messy handling of these conflicts makes spectators wonder if the NFL thinks the real victim is the survivor of the abuse or their own organization.
Slide Thirteen
Amy: The same study referenced how ingrained domestic abuse often is, particularly relating to culture and family units, stating that, “the tendency for many cultures to value family privacy and prioritize the good of the family above that of the individual, referred to as familism, contributes to continued acceptance of abusive behavior. Commonly observed in collectivist cultures, familism can facilitate and perpetuate physical and emotional abuse within families by effectively preventing victims from seeking outside help or even perceiving their treatment as abusive.”
Emma: In regards to sports, it could be said that to a certain extent, sports leagues work to keep these domestic issues in the family. Considering that leagues often conduct their own investigations and deliver their own sentences separate of state and federal courts deepens this concern. It’s kind of questionable that these leagues operate what is essentially their own, insulated legal system for an issue that isn’t exclusive to sports.
Slide Fourteen
Amy: And that’s really the core of the issue: rather than relying on the standing United States legal system, as viewers we’ve come to expect that each league will function as their own judge, jury, and executioner. And while it’s important to set certain expectations of players in professional sporting leagues, leaving it all to the NFL or the NBA to weigh is compromising the real issues.
Emma: Like that women are often still not respected or seen as equals. Or that violence towards women and children is treated as if it’s excusable, or even as if it’s the fault of the victims, or as an unintended side-effect of the still-hotly-debated chronic traumatic encephalopathy players can develop.
Slide Fifteen
Amy: In Rice’s case, the Ravens actually tweeted a statement implying that Janay Palmer was partly to blame for the elevator assault on her. It was later deleted, but still…
Slide Sixteen
Emma: These aren’t issues that the NBA or the NFL should be left or expected to address alone, independent of the judicial system. At the end of the day, these are money-making entities that are going to sway the public’s mind by taking action in a way that seems well-intentioned enough but doesn’t address the heart of the domestic violence problem.
Amy: Yeah, it shouldn’t be the responsibility of the NFL’s PR team to make sure that proper action is taken. And front offices shouldn’t be pushed to act because they’ve gauged that the public will react poorly otherwise.
Emma: That’s the biggest WTF of the day: that in many cases, the most powerful people in sports aren’t the 300-pound linebackers or the millionaire owners and executives, but the credit-card-wielding consumers who are always one badly-handled public scandal away from disrupting a league’s bottom line.
