I just finished reading an excellent study, of the man seen above, in the New York Times Magazine. Commissioner Roger Goodell might be universally scorned, and perhaps even hated, but no one can argue with the results of his tenure at the helm of the fabulously successful National Football League. This is from the article: The N.F.L.’s total revenue in 2015 ($12.4 billion) is nearly double that of a decade earlier ($6.6 billion). The price of television ads during the Super Bowl has increased by more than 75 percent over the last decade. This year’s conference championship games set yet another viewership record for the league: 53.3 million people watched the A.F.C. game on CBS; 45.7 million watched the N.F.C. game on Fox.
In short, professional football is more popular and profitable than ever before, even as the League's problems seem to be multiplying. But you would never know anything was amiss from listening to Goodell. He is relentlessly aggressive when it comes to defending the NFL which is hardly surprising when you realize that the man has never worked anywhere else. His entire working life has been spent with the NFL. Just yesterday, the commissioner strongly asserted that if he had a son he would "love to have him play the game of football" despite the overwhelming scientific evidence showing that the game poses serious long-term health risks for the players. Unkind observers have compared Goodell to the tobacco executives who continued defending their product even in the face of overwhelming medical evidence that the product sickened, and killed, its users. I'd give Goodell the benefit of the doubt on this one though. I do think he is sincere when he says that he'd let his son play football.
Goodell has been far less straightforward when questioned about things like daily fantasy football and medical marijuana. Here is his tortured explanation of why those daily games aren't considered to be a from of gambling by the NFL: “It’s hard to see the influence that it could have on the outcome of a game because individual players are picking different players from different teams, mashing them up, you might call it. It’s not based on the outcome of a game, which is what our biggest concern is with sports betting". This is a variation of the familiar argument which holds that daily fantasy games can't be gambling because there is a level of skill involved in assembling a fantasy team. Congress helpfully reached that conclusion back in 2006 and thus opened the door to the unchecked, and unregulated, proliferation of daily fantasy sports that we see today. And even though these daily games are a very different animal from traditional fantasy sports, the NFL didn't hesitate to get in bed with the industry. Only to wind up looking more than a bit stupid when states started filing lawsuits against DraftKings and FanDuel charging that what they do is indeed a form of gambling. As Rick Perry surely would have put it, OOPS!
As far as the issue of Medical Marijuana, I dealt with that in my last post and won't bother rehashing it at length here. Suffice to say, the NFL's position on medical marijuana positively reeks of hypocrisy. The fact that it is now legal in a number of states means absolutely nothing to the League which, according to Goodell, has no plans on revisiting their policy. As it stands now, any player who tests positive for marijuana will be fined and suspended. The League's thinking on this issue is at least two decades behind the rest of American society which is increasingly in favor of decriminalizing marijuana, and allowing it for both medical and recreational use. One could be forgiven for assuming that the NFL would be embracing medical marijuana as a far less dangerous alternative to the opioid-based painkillers that their players frequently become addicted to. After all, don't we always hear Goodell himself solemnly intoning that the health and welfare of the players is the NFL's number one priority? I won't give him the benefit of the doubt here. There is no good argument to be found that would support the NFL's idiotic stance on the issue of medical marijuana.
In short, professional football is more popular and profitable than ever before, even as the League's problems seem to be multiplying. But you would never know anything was amiss from listening to Goodell. He is relentlessly aggressive when it comes to defending the NFL which is hardly surprising when you realize that the man has never worked anywhere else. His entire working life has been spent with the NFL. Just yesterday, the commissioner strongly asserted that if he had a son he would "love to have him play the game of football" despite the overwhelming scientific evidence showing that the game poses serious long-term health risks for the players. Unkind observers have compared Goodell to the tobacco executives who continued defending their product even in the face of overwhelming medical evidence that the product sickened, and killed, its users. I'd give Goodell the benefit of the doubt on this one though. I do think he is sincere when he says that he'd let his son play football.
Goodell has been far less straightforward when questioned about things like daily fantasy football and medical marijuana. Here is his tortured explanation of why those daily games aren't considered to be a from of gambling by the NFL: “It’s hard to see the influence that it could have on the outcome of a game because individual players are picking different players from different teams, mashing them up, you might call it. It’s not based on the outcome of a game, which is what our biggest concern is with sports betting". This is a variation of the familiar argument which holds that daily fantasy games can't be gambling because there is a level of skill involved in assembling a fantasy team. Congress helpfully reached that conclusion back in 2006 and thus opened the door to the unchecked, and unregulated, proliferation of daily fantasy sports that we see today. And even though these daily games are a very different animal from traditional fantasy sports, the NFL didn't hesitate to get in bed with the industry. Only to wind up looking more than a bit stupid when states started filing lawsuits against DraftKings and FanDuel charging that what they do is indeed a form of gambling. As Rick Perry surely would have put it, OOPS!
As far as the issue of Medical Marijuana, I dealt with that in my last post and won't bother rehashing it at length here. Suffice to say, the NFL's position on medical marijuana positively reeks of hypocrisy. The fact that it is now legal in a number of states means absolutely nothing to the League which, according to Goodell, has no plans on revisiting their policy. As it stands now, any player who tests positive for marijuana will be fined and suspended. The League's thinking on this issue is at least two decades behind the rest of American society which is increasingly in favor of decriminalizing marijuana, and allowing it for both medical and recreational use. One could be forgiven for assuming that the NFL would be embracing medical marijuana as a far less dangerous alternative to the opioid-based painkillers that their players frequently become addicted to. After all, don't we always hear Goodell himself solemnly intoning that the health and welfare of the players is the NFL's number one priority? I won't give him the benefit of the doubt here. There is no good argument to be found that would support the NFL's idiotic stance on the issue of medical marijuana.
