Do controversies hurt the NFL?

administration, we had Teflon Ron; the NFL has Teflon all year long.

Shackled with public-relations nightmares that would have doomed most corporate entities, the NFL delivers like the post office — through rain and snow and tsunamis and earthquakes.

’“Much like the gladiator games during the Roman Empire, the NFL has turned into such a giant spectacle and popular product that people simply can’t resist tuning in every Sunday (Thursday and Monday nights) to watch their beloved team/s,” said Chris Hurting, an account executive for the BMF public-relations firm in New Orleans.

He added: “No matter what happens off the field, football is so ingrained in the American psyche that it is now simply too big to fail.”

So, observers can pontificate all they want on the supposed decline in popularity of the NFL, but where does it get them. Just the usual love from spectators and corporate sponsors alike.

The NFL is an $11 billion enterprise, with sights on $25 billion by the 2027 season. Can anything derail this speeding locomotive from that 12-year goal? No way. Domestic violence, drugs, thugs and lugs, notwithstanding.

And off-the-field woes haven’t put a dent in the values of NFL franchises. According to Forbes business magazine, the Washington Redskins were the highestvalued NFL franchise in 2006 at $1.4 billion. In 2015, the Dallas Cowboys took the mantle at an eye-popping $3.2 billion.

This means the monetary worth of the NFL’s most valuable team has increased by $1.8 billion in nine years. Furthermore, a team such as the Buffalo Bills, located in a small market closer to Canada than Manhattan, sold in 2014 for $1.4 billion, which would have been good enough for the top-value spot in 2006.

The defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots more than doubled its value since 2006 — skyrocketing from a $1.18 billion valuation to $2.6 billion in 2015.

Even NFL fantasy leagues have mushroomed into a billion-dollar interest.

So, is the NFL ultimately too big to fail? You know it. league’s leniency in domestic-abuse cases. Somehow the same offense that merited a two-game suspension instantly became a year’s ban from the sport? Taking the NFL to court is really a can’t-lose case for the most part, thanks to the NFL’s cluelessness.

Arbitration is generally a fine way to settle disputes out of court — but not if arbitration is used, as the NFL does, as a blunt-force tool for doing what it wants anyway. “Arbitrators” do not allow evidence to be withheld or for due process to be blindsided. Any judge would have reached the same conclusion Berman did: The NFL’s brand of arbitration is “fundamentally unfair.”

So what can we expect next from the NFL? Can it repeatedly lose in court and still be a winner in the court of public opinion? Here’s what to watch:

Watch how the league responds to the growing tsunami of evidence that professional football is permanently disabling its players. Concussions — and the league’s culpability in their long-term effects — are now under intense scrutiny. You can bet the next collective-bargaining negotiations will seek to swing the needle sharply toward players’ health and futures, rightly so.

Will the league get out in front and lead on this issue, or will it backpedal?

Watch how the league deals with the steady drumbeat for changing a racist slur team name, the Washington Redskins. In 2015, it’s an embarrassing affront to all of civilized society.

Will the NFL find a way to compel team owner Dan Snyder to do the right thing, or keep enabling him to use his franchise to humiliate Native Americans? If the NFL continues to look the other way, it surely will find itself — you guessed it — in court.

Watch how the league responds to the media revolution that is streaming, Tweeting, Facetiming and otherwise reinventing how content (i.e. NFL games) is distributed and consumed.

Will the league (a) continue to build walls around its product, like the NFL Network, a paid-access only broadcaster of many NFL games? Or (b) will the NFL use its vast wealth, influence and its voracious built-in market to put as many eyeballs possible on live NFL action?