NFL Concussion-gate: Admission of Guilt or Token Concession?

The NFL decision to pay over 4200 retired players, who are suffering from concussion related brain injuries, $765 million over 20 years will go down in history with other monumental settlements; monumental in terms of the lost to the plaintiffs and gain to the defendants. They will go down in history with major corporations like the Wall Street bailout, British Petroleum (BP), and Exxon Mobil; companies that paid relatively small settlements in terms of their overall financial worth and the damages they were accused of or caused.

In the case of the NFL, which consists of 32 teams with values averaging around $1.17 billion, it generates $10 billion annually.  Thus, $765 million over 20 years, a mere $38.25 million per year, is a very small percentage of its annual revenue.  Even if the NFL matched the plaintiffs’ request for $2 billion, their lost would have been minimal.  This settlement is also minimal with the increasing number of retired players who are reporting complications from brain injuries associated with concussions.

This was an opportunity for the NFL to take a stance and be a leader in being more concerned about the health and well being of the employees and former employees than their brand and bottom line.  This was an opportunity for the NFL to use their popularity and profits to contribute to the research on traumatic brain injuries and make a statement about its stance on corporate healthcare. 

Yet again, we have another multibillion-dollar corporation that misses an opportunity to express corporate responsibility. Instead, their token concessions admit their quilt and demonstrate their corporate irresponsibility and greed.

High School Football: To Televise or Not to Televise?

Debate increases on the ethical dilemma of televising high school football games.  Though not a recent occurrence, local, regional, and national coverage has increased significantly in the past 10 years.  For example, since 2005, ESPN and its family of networks (ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN3) have provided national coverage for nationally ranked high school football programs. In 2013, the ESPN and its family of networks are scheduled to televise 26 teams from 15 states.  Similarly, FOX Sport South and Sport South have both increased their coverage of high school football.

Clearly, high school football is a product, and there is a demand for this product.  The sponsorship by corporations like Gieco and Under Armour provides evidence of the commercial viability of high school football.  There are advantages and disadvantages in this venture, which I will highlight a few of both.

First, televising high school football nationally provides some compensation to schools and school districts where funding for interscholastic sports have been dwindling with the cut in state funding.  Additionally, televising high school football games provides national exposure for schools, teams, key players, and coaches.  Athletes are able to display their talents and abilities before a national audience.  It also provides opportunities for athletes who are “under the radar” of college recruiters the chance to get display their abilities under the pressure of the national limelight.

One disadvantage is that, when teams have to travel from 500 – 2500 miles to compete for a national televised audience, it removes the event from the communities that bare the cost of supporting the schools and school districts.  Needless to say that interscholastic sports is a unifying factor for communities.  It also assists in instilling school and civic pride.  Furthermore, local vendors, who use these events as a means of livelihood, also lose out when these games are displaced.  But, all of this is lost to the team traveling thousands of miles to compete for a national audience.  A final disadvantage associated with the travel distance is that it creates a disruption in the academic life of athletes.  For the long distant trips, Fridays are lost to travel. Therefore, whatever classes and academic work required on Fridays will have to take a back-seat to the team’s travel schedule.

As it relates to the academic life, the increased commercialization of high school football, as a result of televised games, lends itself to further fueling the anti-intellectualism that is pervasive in the athletic culture.  This is the result of the increased athletic demand that is required for athletes to perform at optimal levels for a national audience.  This demand is socializing a group of students to focus more on athletics than academics.  Couple this with how we tend to encourage athletes to think that education is something to “fall back on,” we are informing young athletes to prioritize athletics over education; or that education is simply secondary and athletics is their primary ticket to a better life.  This is a grave mis-education of the “student” athlete.

Whether interscholastic sports will go the way of intercollegiate sports is yet to be seen.  Clearly interscholastic football and boys’ basketball are evolving as highly commercialized entertainment sports.  Reaching a healthy balance, where youth athletes are grounded in their academic experience and “value” academic excellence as the primary means of obtaining social mobility and being productive citizens, is imperative for this marriage between corporate America and public school districts and private school associations.

Therefore, beyond stressing the value of education for young athletes, establishing criteria to reduce the travel distance of teams for these televised games is important.  Also, academic criteria (team GPA’s, graduation rates, etc.) should be a part of the selection process for televising these games.  Ultimately and most importantly, reassessing the mission of interscholastic sports in the context of a challenging public educational system is vitally important.  

Professional Sports: Heading For Self Destruction

(A version of this essay appeared in New York Times: Room for Debate)

As a microcosm of our society, sports often reflect and reinforce inequalities and behaviors that are endemic at the macro-level of our society. In contact sports especially, where there is a premium placed on aggression and violent behavior, a culture exists where athletes are rewarded from a very young age for expressing these behaviors. What we are witnessing at the professional level is a culture that condones, promote, and reward aggressive and violent behaviors, where some players are not psychologically equipped to compartmentalize these behaviors to the field or arena. Because this has been their way of life since youth sports, and now it is their livelihood, these athletes are expressing accumulated years of character “underdevelopment”. These behaviors carryover into their personal lives ultimately harming the lives of those close to them or within their proximity.

The practice of distancing oneself from these athletes, in the case of some leagues behaviors (e.g., the NFL New England Patriots releasing Aaron Hernandez; Adam “Pacman” Jones released by the Titans, Chris Henry released by the Bengals, or Tank Jones released by the Bears), can only protect their profit margins, the Shield, or their brand for only so long.  Recent occurrences in the banking industry inform us that no corporation is too big to fail or self-destruct.  Confronting the culture of violence inherent in sports and developing sound programs to address the character of “underdevelopment” these leagues are inheriting conveys the corporate responsibility needed in professional leagues like the NFL.  Especially since sport has been lauded as a means of character and social development, and many youth look to these athletes as role models. 

With the prevalence of gun violence in our culture, the ease of access to guns, professional sport leagues are presented with an opportunity to be leaders in the fight against gun violence.  Not with an ephemeral press conferences or public service announcements, but with substantive practices that consistently discourages gun ownership among its players, and in the case of the NFL High School Character Development program, a curriculum that addresses anger management and conflict resolution.  Youth level coaches and administrators must also be aware of how they may be contributing to the compression of developmental stages of youth when aggression and violence is promoted over character development. 

Ultimately, as a nation we will have to determine whether our favorite sport pastimes are more valuable to cheer and their athletes more important to idolize where we turn a deaf ear and continually support senseless violence unbecoming of a civilized nation, rather than take a stand to STOP THE VIOLENCE. 

Unconscious Consumption and Corporate Greed

The harsh reality of the ultra commercialized NCAA men’s college basketball tournament was made evident after the tragic “Theismann-like” injury Kevin Ware incurred during the elite game between the Louisville Cardinals and the Duke Blue Devils.  The 6’2” guard for the Cardinals broke his leg with 6:33 remaining in the game.  While his leg was being reset and cast for recovery, Adidas executives came up with the bright ideas of creating a t-shirt, supposedly in “support of” or “in tribute” to Ware’s injury.  Thus, for $24.99, you could pay tribute and show your support to Ware by purchasing a “Ri5e to the Occasion” t-shirt; with his number (#5) on the back.

Fortunately, there was an outcry on social media against this unwise profiteering.  Adidas pulled the t-shirts from the shelves, but unfortunately, it was not due to the outcry on social media or recognizing their corporate irresponsibility, but the t-shirts were discontinued because of an issue with the logo. 

Can you imagine; within a tournament that generates 90% of the NCAA annual revenue, this multinational corporation, Adidas, seeks to profit even more off of the talents of athlete-students, and in this case, the misfortune of this athlete-student’s injury.

I was alarmed to see how many individuals outfitted in this t-shirt during the Louisville vs Wichita State game.  Were these consumers blind to the emotional tactics of these corporate profiteers, where you tie a product to a cause and sell it?  Was there anyone in the Adidas boardroom, during the crafting of this idea, who stood in opposition to this project?  I hate to think that this Ware-tribute project was not fast-tracked without one soul saying, “ wait a minute, are we being corporately responsible” or “are we fiscally desperate where we need to profit from the pain of an innocent victim?”  Was there an outcry in the boardroom to the blatant corporate greed evident in this venture?  

Although it is a lofty idea to think that there would be an internal outcry within the Adidas organization, and I am to see the response on social media.  Individuals asking, “where is the money going,” and questioning this corporate practice.  As consumers, the use of social media is important medium for expressing discontent to corporate irresponsibleness, and it is more appropriate to use our dollars make a stand against corporate greed and their insensitive profiteering.  If multinational corporations cannot be governed by their morality or the need to be socially and corporately responsible, then it is only appropriate that we awaken from our unconscious consumption and use our dollars to make a difference.

Academics-First, or Does Athletics Trump Academics?

The University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents adopted a new policy to control athletic programs expansions and financing.  According the system’s vice chancellor and chief academic officer, Houston Davis, “Athletics are certainly something that we value, but we can’t afford to be all things to all people, and we certainly need to think critically, especially if an institution is thinking about expanding. We’ve got fiduciary responsibilities and academic quality assurances as an existing enterprise, and we need to make sure we’re not making those moves to the detriment of other core areas of the institution.”  The policy simply states that, “operation of intercollegiate athletics cannot come at the expense of academic programs and essential activities at a campus or by diverting funds from other major campus functions.” Simply stated, athletics should not trump academics.  In the words of John McEnroe, “you can not be serious!”  Academics-first should be a given, especially at institutions of HIGHER LEARNING.

Yet, this is on the cusp of the University of Georgia Athletic Association giving their football offensive coordinator a $240,000 raise, while other Bulldog assistant coaches received a $25,000 increase.  Not to mention, they increased the head coach’s salary to $3,200,000. The following is a complete breakdown of the coaches’ salaries:

•  Head coach Mark Richt $3,200,000
• Defensive coordinator Todd Grantham: $850,000
• Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo: $575,000
• Offensive line coach Will Friend: $300,000
• Inside linebackers coach Kirk Olivadotti: $285,000
• Wide receivers coach Tony Ball: $260,000
• Defensive line coach Chris Wilson: $250,000
• Secondary coach Scott Lakatos: $235,000
• Tight ends coach John Lilly: $235,000
• Running backs coach Bryan McClendon: $235,000

Keep in mind that this is at a time when faculty have not had a raise in the past five years, and salary compressions are forcing many faculty to seek offers at other institutions. 

I know the common arguments for paying coaches this amount of money: they lack job security, athletics bring in considerable amount of money and attention to institutions, the market drives these salary levels, athletics operate as a separate “self-sufficient” entity, etc.  To be honest, I am not against paying coaches their fair market value.  I am against the hypocrisy of institutions espousing academics over athletics when their behaviors dictate otherwise.  In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” 

It is time to be honest about the “tail that is wagging the dog” or as Dr. Harry Edwards have suggested that two dogs have emerged under the auspices of higher education with two distinctly different agendas; one purely commercial, while the other is a mixed of being a public trust with commercial interests.  Many universities are being held hostage to the control athletics have over public perception.  Besides, in many cases athletic programs, especially football and men’s basketball drive considerable amount of attention (good and bad) to these universities.  Intercollegiate athletics are being mass consumed by the public, and academics are provided a small space to inform the public through public service announcements aired during televised events.  Furthermore, with the amount of media revenue that is undergirding athletic departments, it is virtually impossible for academic administrators to say no to this commercial enterprise economic expansion.

Another case and point to drive this idea of athletics trumping academics happened at one of this nation’s premiere academic institutions, Northwestern University, where they fired their men’s basketball coach, Bill Carmody.  Carmody’s dismissal was not because of academic reasons: assisting in graduating athletes or in meeting the required APR score.  It was because he did not take his team to the lucrative NCAA’s Men’s tournament and because of his dismal 192-210 record in 13 seasons.  Regarding academics, Carmody’s record was not too bad.  Under Carmody’s tenure, men’s basketball graduation rates for the past 8 seasons averaged 87% GSR and 51% FGR, which ranked him in the top ten programs in the country.  Yet, graduating athletes is clearly secondary to winning basketball games and making it to the tournament.  Therefore, Northwestern University’s, the 12th ranked university in the country according to U.S. News & World Report 2012-13 ranking, academic accomplishments are trumped by athletic desires.

Clearly college athletics is intoxicating and many fans and proponents of the current model are consistently inebriated with an abundance of media coverage.  The athletic-induced drunkenness deadens once senses to the fact that these are institutions of HIGHER LEARNING.  Thus, many exist in a stupor where they are inhibited from making a sound judgment regarding reversing the trend of having athletics trump academics.

Stop the hypocrisy and face the fact that athletics trump academics, in practice; especially the highly commercial sports of football and men’s basketball.  Face the reality that many of these institutions are operating minor league programs that warp the academic achievement of many athletes.  Coming to turns with this truth will help us understand why an Ohio State third-string QB would twitter why he should go to class if he came to play football.  He is not an anomaly.  However, he will probably end up a martyr for exposing the hypocrisy that academics trumps athletics.