Patriotism payments another fumble for NFL
The NFL might give the money back! Well, some of the money back. Well, probably not. But before we get into the other issues involving the American military secretly paying 14 National Football League teams to hold touching ceremonies for the troops during games, those pretend-surprise reunions with returning soldiers and their families, the giant American flags, the honouring of their sacrifice while coming back from the commercial break, we should acknowledge that the NFL acknowledged this remote-as-that-planet-in-Interstellar possibility that the NFL might, under some universe-bending circumstances, give some money back.
“If we find that inappropriate payments were made, they will be refunded in full,” commissioner Roger Goodell wrote to Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake.
That’s how hot the blowtorch has gotten: the barest admission of possible wrongdoing. The NFL can get away with basically everything because the NFL has the definition of bleep-you-pal money, and they are greedy enough that they let a game be wrongly decided on national television because they wanted to bust down the NFL Referees Association — TOUCHDOWN SEA- HAWKS — so they could freeze their defined benefits pension plan after 2016. This is a league that has already lost two wage theft lawsuits to underpaid cheerleaders, and faces at least five more, because many teams don’t pay their cheerleaders minimum wage.
The NFL wants to drink your milkshake, or sell you a more expensive, logo-covered, branded milkshake. And after the details of this military sponsorship deal were comprehensively spelled out in a U.S. Senate report, Goodell had to pretend the NFL might not keep all of the $6 million (U.S.), according to the report. He didn’t spell out what constituted an inappropriate payment, but presumably, secretly sponsoring a supposedly spontaneous military spouse reunion with a conveniently unscarred soldier probably doesn’t make his cut. You can’t recruit with the guys who lost limbs, you know?
There were other contracts as well: six NHL teams, eight in the NBA, 10 in Major League Baseball, NASCAR, eight in Major League Soccer, some universities, and Alamo Comic Con, for some reason. That totalled another $3 million, all in the guise of honouring the troops, and aligning the sports with a fierce cartoon patriotism. Sports raids the public purse in worse ways — governmentor tax-funded stadium financing, now and forever, which should have been banned in North America long ago — but the military industrial sports complex is an insidious bit of recruiting marketing. At least in Canada, it seems unlikely that our military has the money to do that.
But just imagine: The NFL fought the concussion crisis with guns, and bigger guns. They fought the Ray Rice tape crisis, and never gave up the goods. They fought the Patriots, and the Saints, and of course the union. They fight everybody who wants one extra dollar, who wants anything at all, because that is how the very rich get hyper-very rich. $6 million? That’s not even the league’s budget for lunches, probably. But they’ll fight, because you’re going to watch football anyway, suckers. Football is basically conscription.
Last week this space went 7-6-1. The week before, 7-7. The week before, 7-6-1, and the week before that, 7-6-1, and the week before that, 8-6. The ker-splat week is coming. As always, all lines could change.
THE PICKS
In a legal brief, the Washingtons’ lawyers cited other rude company names in America as support for their own. Most such names can’t make the paper, alas. But Washington lawyers also cited cross burning and homophobic picketing of military funerals as comparably defended speech. Cool team! Pick: New England Oakland (+4.5) at Pittsburgh Wait, hold up. The Raiders might be . . . good? They’re fifth in offensive DVOA, a metric from Football Outsiders. They are eighth overall, behind (in ascending order) only Carolina, Denver, the Jets, Green Bay, Cincinnati, Arizona and the Patriots. Oakland! OAKLAND! Pick: Oakland Denver (-5.5) at Indianapolis Last week Aaron Rodgers threw for 77 yards against Denver. In a whole game. Of football. AMERICAN football. He’s basically the best quarterback in the world, which means guys, Denver might get a chance to lose the Super Bowl again this year. Pick: Denver
THE REST
Green Bay (+2.5) at Carolina Tennessee (+8) at New Orleans Miami (+ 3) at Buffalo St. Louis (+2.5) at Minnesota Jacksonville (off the board) at Jets N.Y. Giants (-2.5) at Tampa Bay Atlanta (-7) at San Francisco Philadelphia (-2.5) at Dallas Chicago (+4) at San Diego
Byes: Baltimore, Kansas City, Houston, Detroit, Arizona, Seattle.
Last week: 7-6-1 Season: 60-54-4.