OK, I give up.
I've long hoped that the public would reach its breaking point and stop loving the NFL. I figured people would realize the NFL is a drain on public coffers, a government-supported bread-and-circus show meant to distract us from the massive transfer of wealth to the already-wealthy. I thought fans would see that the NFL's players are not heroes, but rather just flawed humans with extraordinary athletic talent.
Surely the sight of ex-players with debilitating brain injuries or those committing suicide would illicit sympathy even from those who view players as highly-paid pieces of meat. Certainly even those people who care nothing about the negative social implications of the NFL as an institution would tune out once they saw that the league is more about entertainment than fair competition.
In short, I thought people would grow tired of the NFL as it is increasingly exposed for what it is. The scandals, the violence spilling into real life, the corporate welfare, the tacit condoning of cheating, the institutional arrogance—surely all of this will make Americans eventually stop loving the NFL.
(I say this even as I acknowledge that I make my living in part because people love the NFL.)
But I was wrong. The NFL is impervious to its self-inflicted wounds. Here is the latest proof that nothing will ever stop the NFL:
^tfw
The NFL can do whatever it wants. As long as it entertains us with games, we will overlook everything else. We love the NFL and can’t give it up.
The NFL's star players can beat up women, abuse a child, run a dogfighting ring and commit murder.
Its billionaire owners can ask for and receive money-losing public subsidies from municipalities with crumbling infrastructure to build private stadiums.
It can make cynical deals to promote the U.S. war machine and trade on fake patriotism for pay.
It can pretend to care about women's health while promoting another money-making scheme.
It can lie to its players about the risk of brain injury, hide the evidence from them, and then settle a class-action lawsuit for an amount that is about 10 percent of its revenue in 2014.
It can call the integrity of its games into question in so many ways I can't list them all—but let's start with protecting one of its marquee franchises by destroying evidence of an elaborate cheating scheme.
None of it matters. Women love the NFL. Gamblers love the NFL. Corporations love the NFL. Politicians love the NFL.
Lots and lots of Americans love the NFL and more of us watch it on television than we watch anything else.
The only hope of stopping the NFL is that we stop loving football so much. Maybe parents will stop letting their kids play football because they don’t want their brains to turn to mush. Perhaps citizens will hold politicians to account when they give away public money to billionaires for stadiums with no commensurate public benefit. It’s possible those who want to see real, fair competition rather than manufactured entertainment will turn elsewhere.
I’m not counting on it. Parents who live vicariously through their children and/or want Johnny Football to earn a scholarship will let them play at the risk of brain injury. Citizens who protect the prerogative of rich people and demonize poor people in every other facet of society won’t suddenly demand that NFL owners stop feeding from the public trough. Sports have a disproportionate importance in American society, and the NFL remains the most popular sports league even if we suspect it’s not completely on the up-and-up.
We love the NFL and that won’t ever change no matter how often the NFL shows it’s not worthy of our affections.
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