America’s game isn’t too big to fail, or to learn
When NHL ratings in Canada plunged last season, the explanation seemed almost self-evident. Canadian teams were terrible, some nearly unwatchable. All seven missed the playoffs.
Now, with the story much more positive for the Canadian clubs at the beginning of this season, we’ll see if that was, in fact, the main cause.
South of the border this fall, meanwhile, there’s a similar story going on relating to the TV ratings of the all-powerful, seemingly untouchable NFL. Ratings are down 11 per cent in the first six weeks of the season, even more for some primetime games.
Everyone’s got a theory. There are those who want to blame the 2016 presidential campaign, and there’s no question that watching Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump go for each other’s throats on a daily basis has been must-watch television for many, and impossible-to-turn-away TV for many others.
Still, it’s hard to believe all the Bubbas and Skeeters out there are suddenly drawn to political discourse in such numbers that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell felt he had to address the issue this week. Well, sort of.
“We don’t make excuses,” said the commissioner. “We look at it and try to figure out what’s changing.”
The list of possible reasons, as we said, is long. Some cite the quality of football or of early-season matchups. Some fans have clearly been upset or turned off by anthem protests involving players like San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
The days when the league was packaged to the homespun narrative of NFL Films narrator John Facenda, dubbed the “Voice of God,” are gone. Then, it was guts and glory and Dick Butkus crewcuts, or at least that’s how it was sold. Now it’s different, with the NFL merging its blue-collar past with modern themes of hip-hop and celebrity red carpets.
The movie Concussion and media investigations into NFL brain injuries surely also changed the storyline. At minor football levels and even in college football, brain injuries are a constant story and players are turning away from the sport.
Somewhere alongside all of this, meanwhile, is the complex, troubling issue of domestic abuse that burst into unfortunate prominence for the NFL again this week. Indeed, there were echoes of the Ray Rice incident in what appears to be the disastrously bungled case of New York Giants placekicker Josh Brown, who was charged last year in the state of Washington with fourth-degree domestic violence relating to an incident involving his former wife, Molly. The charges were later dropped.
The league investigated, and ultimately the 37-year-old Brown was suspended for one game at the start of this season. That raised eyebrows because it was far below the sixgame “baseline” suspension the league had prescribed in the wake of the Rice domestic abuse scandal two years ago. The NFL said it had “insufficient” information to warrant a longer ban.
This week, however, police documents were released that showed the deeply troubled Brown describing himself in March 2014 as a serial abuser of women since the age of 7, and a sexual deviant who viewed himself as “God” and his wife as a “slave.” He acknowledged repeatedly abusing his wife.
Embarrassing, to say the least, for the Giants and the league, particularly since Brown was re-signed to a two-year, $4-million contract last summer. Co-owner John Mara said at the time that even though Brown’s ex-wife had alleged some 20 incidents of abuse, he was “comfortable” with re-signing Brown, and felt he had to be “fair” to the kicker.
This week, Mara, who is basically part of NFL ownership royalty, was confronted with the startling new evidence.
“He certainly admitted to us that he abused his wife in the past,” Mara said on Thursday. “What’s a little unclear is the extent of that.”
Clearly, the NFL’s half-hearted investigation didn’t dig too deeply, and neither the league nor the Giants apparently put much emphasis on an incident at last year’s Pro Bowl in which league security helped Molly Brown change hotel rooms to hide from her violent husband.
Late Thursday, the Giants announced Brown wouldn’t be going to London to participate in Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Rams after practising with the team earlier in the day.
As of Friday, the kicker still had not been released.
“We’re not going to turn our back on him,” said head coach Ben McAdoo on Friday. Nothing, of course, from McAdoo or the Giants about the victim. You know, standing by her.
The NFL plans to reopen the investigation. Still, the contrast between the actions of the NFL, and its willingness to give Brown the benefit of the doubt, and the vigour with which the league relentlessly pursued New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady for deflating footballs is mind-blowing.
Admit you hit your wife and, well, we’ll look into it. Tamper with the sacred pigskin and we will hunt you down to the ends of the earth.
To say the NFL appears tone deaf on the issue of domestic violence would be an understatement. But are NFL fans and viewers turned off by this? As with the election or Kaepernick or concussions, it’s hard to say what’s having the greatest impact.
The larger point is that this is fixable. A league that goes pink in October to honour women stricken with breast cancer needs to show equal enthusiasm and attention to a deep cultural problem that hurts thousands of families and scars the sport.
You can’t honour women, mothers and daughters on one hand, then turn a blind eye to their abuse and suffering on the other.
In 2016, that won’t sell.