‘Pinktober’ paints over league’s issues
The NFL’s idea of outreach to women was once described as “shrink it and pink it.” That is, taking the same stuff the league was already selling to men, scaling it to size and then splashing on a lot of pink dye. That’s not enough anymore. Fans will see pinked-out fields this weekend for the start of the NFL’s version of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Keep in mind the league took in more than $9 billion last year from an audience in which women made up almost half (46 per cent, or 93 million total viewers).
The NFL’s fourth annual campaign, dubbed A Crucial Catch, is a good cause to be sure. Like any runway show — albeit one with violent collisions — the participants will be accessorized head to toe. According to the league’s own inventory, that means pink “cleats, wristbands, gloves, sideline caps, helmet decals, captains’ patches, chin straps, shoe laces, skull caps, sideline towels, eye shield decals, quarterback towels and mouth guards.”
(OK, maybe not mouth guards, since players who agreed to wear them to endorse Crest toothpaste were allowed to opt out after corporate parent Procter & Gamble pulled out of the campaign in response to the league’s colossal bungling of the Ray Rice affair.)
Fans won’t be shortchanged, either. In addition to being handed pink rally towels in some stadiums, they’ll be treated to pink goalpost padding, cheerleaders waving pink pompoms, special pink ribbon game balls and pink-ribboned caps for coaches, team personnel and officials.
You might think all that pink would translate into a lot of money.
Maybe, maybe not. Depends on who you ask.
The NFL donates 100 per cent of the proceeds from the sale of pink merchandise and gameworn items through an auction on NFL.com.
In 2009, the first year of the program, that meant a cheque to the American Cancer Society for $310,175; last year, it was for $1.86 million. It’s not a direct comparison, but the society’s campaign with the Walgreen’s chain — which offers customers a chance to add a donation when paying for their purchases — raises about $5 million annually.
The NFL has kicked in about $6.7 million total so far, and there’s no question their partnership with ACS has been increasingly effective at getting out the word.
Be wary, though, any time the words “NFL” and “enlightened self-interest” appear in the same sentence. This is the same league, after all, that’s plowed plenty of money into a program designed to convince mothers, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, that there’s a way to tackle that makes football safer for their kids.