“The ‘other’ side of the NFL’s story,” The Colorado Springs Business Journal, September 19-25, 2014, 27

The NFL’s Other Story

While the airwaves and print media recycle their outrage over the revelations of domestic violence perpetrated by Ray Rice against his fiancé at the time and Adrian Peterson against his 4-year old son, the focus has shifted from the alleged crimes themselves to the NFL’s cover-up.

Reminiscent of US Presidents’ own cover-up stories that ended in impeachments and the Catholic Church’s sordid history of protecting priests’ acts of pedophilia, the media reflects public outrage.

Will this storm be as quickly forgotten as the storm about the long-term debilitating effects of injuries suffered by NFL players? Will the concussion controversy be swept under million-dollar settlements with retired players or clever marketing campaigns?

As these scandals come to light, and regardless of how they’ll be eventually settled, they also shed light on the NFL itself as one of the most successful financial enterprises in the American entertainment industry.

To begin with, though race and class issues have been raised in media explanations of the behavior of NFL players, we are dealing here with millionaires, after all. The lowest NFL contractual salary per year is $375,000 (with an average of $1.9 million). Even if the average playing career of NFL players is short, this is a handsome compensation.

When we direct our ire at Commissioner Roger Goodell, we should remind ourselves that his annual compensation exceeds $44 million—not bad for the so-called sheriff of football. You’d think that for that salary he could have the courage to deal with criminals among his flock. Can we expect some moral courage as well, or is this too much to ask of a millionaire?

But with all of this money flowing, what we forget is that the NFL is a non-profit organization with strong players union. For devout fans—NFL games attract more viewers per game than any other sport—these facts might not be known. Non-profit? With an estimated $9 billion in annual revenue, how is it conceivable that the IRS would recognize such an organization as non-profit?

We know that the Church of Scientology has had its run-ins with the IRS, because of its dubious claims of religious practices. Is the NFL the new American religion? Does the worship of athletic celebrities warrant non-profit designation? I’m sure some clever lawyer made the argument that allowed for this ridiculous designation, but does that mean that game tickets are tax-deductible?

From a business perspective, this non-profit status is fascinating—who wouldn’t want to shelter profits in a similar fashion?—but not nearly as fascinating as the communal, even socialist, rules governing the league.

Last Sunday, there were three big upsets in the league: the Chicago Bears defeated the 49ers in their new stadium south of San-Francisco, San Diego defeated the 2013 Super-Bowl champions, the Seattle Seahawks, and Cleveland defeated the New Orleans Saints. How is that possible? Why is it that on any given Sunday, any team, even the statistically worst one, can beat the best?

The NFL is the model of real competition, the one Adam Smith already envisioned, and the one economists theorize about. If any participant team in the football market can beat anyone else, there must be some fairness in this game. How is fair play in the NFL guaranteed?

Though not government-imposed, there is league-imposed salary cap on all teams, so that the best and the worst cannot outspend each other. This way rich owners cannot skew the results of games by buying all the available talent in one year (the way it’s done in baseball, for example).

This imposed equality—socialist if I ever saw one—is an accepted, unquestioned feature of the game of billionaires (one of the worst teams in the league, the Buffalo Bills, was just sold for $1.4 billion). Would these same billionaires agree to such caps in other markets? Would they agree that fair competition requires strict regulations and enforcement, even unions?

Instead of reciting Adam Smith’s cliché of Invisible Hand—unbridled competition despite monopolistic tendencies and barriers to market entry—we should recall his more nuanced and insightful Impartial Spectator. Focusing on morality, Smith insisted that our conscience be our guide, that our moral sentiments can ensure fair dealings with others.

As we delight in the socialist-framed competition of the NFL, we may also want to encourage owners, players, and fans alike to think in moral terms about their moral responsibility on and off the field. Celebrity status comes at a price, and so are the expectations of millionaire athletes: they are role models to young viewers and future players. As such, domestic violence, drug abuse, and DUIs should be fully excised from their daily diet.

Raphael Sassower is professor of philosophy at UCCS. He co-authored with Jeff Scholes Religion and Sports in American Culture (2014). He can be reached at rsassower@gmail.com See previous articles at sassower.blogspot.com