As soon as former New England Patriots' tight end Aaron Hernandez was formally charged with murder, both the NFL and the Patriots worked as quickly as possible to distance themselves from the situation.
Why? To protect their image. The NFL and its Commissioner Roger Goodell are always worried about “protecting the shield,” and making sure that the league only employs players who have the best morals and are the least likely to make headlines for the wrong reasons. Of course, this never works out as planned. There are always going to be the Adam “Pacman” Jone’s of the world and Chad (Ochocinco) Johnson’s who are either going to get in trouble off the field or run their mouths and draw attention to themselves.
However, this problem seems to be worse over the past two weeks or so, following Hernandez’s arrest, Cleveland Browns’ rookie linebacker Ausar Walcott being charged with attempted murder and the arrest of Indianapolis Colts’ safety Joe Lefeged for gun charges.
But does the NFL really have an image problem? In short – no. But to get there, we need to look at the NFL’s problems in relation to other American sports and if these arrests are really hurting their product.
Yes, Hernandez has been dominating the headlines with the media camped outside his house for several days before he was finally arrested. But that was only because of his name value.
The media has buried the stories of Walcott and Lefeged, often writing them in the last two or three graphs of an update on Hernandez, simply because their name doesn’t carry as much value. If someone like Dwayne Wade was charged with murder in the NBA, the story would be getting just as much airtime as Hernandez.
According to the U-T San Diego, 31 players have been arrested since the Super Bowl. Yes, that’s a big number, but that doesn’t mean other leagues aren’t dealing with the same thing. At the end of May, Boston Celtics player Terrence Williams was arrested and charged with second-degree assault charge, and former NBA player Gilbert Arenas was arrested last Thursday for having illegal fireworks in the back of his truck.
The same goes for the MLB. The league made headlines (headlines that seemed to have disappeared quickly) when word came out that the league wanted to suspend several players for 100 games for violating the substance abuse policy. This list included some of the top names in the league, including Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun. MLB players can run into off-the-field issues too, as Cleveland Indians’ pitcher Chris Perez proved when he and his wife were arrested for the possession of marijuana.
The problem is, names like Perez and Williams don’t carry as much weight in the media, and are glossed over by ESPN and other media outlets. Plus, the time of Hernandez’s arrest comes at a time when almost nothing else is going on in the sporting world. The only thing to compete against a story like Hernandez at this point is the MLB, which is still only at its halfway point of the season, and NBA free agnecy. Say this arrest came in February, when there was still lingering coverage of the Super Bowl, and the NBA and NHL seasons were in full swing. Sure Hernandez would still be a top story but there is no chance it gets as much coverage as it is now.
But when NFL players do get arrested, is it really the league’s fault? All rookies are required to attend a rookie symposium at the beginning of their careers, and current and former players and coaches get up and speak about why they should stay out of trouble and how to avoid making negative headlines. The league is doing all it can, marching up Pacman and Herman Edwards on stage to tell players to hang out with the right people and stay off the streets after 2 a.m. But what can the NFL do after that? The league simply can’t assign each player a mentor to monitor the players 24/7. These are grown men in their 20’s and 30’s, and eventually they have to learn to make the right decision. That is not the league’s fault.
Even if fans react negatively to these arrests, does it really hurt the league’s product? The ratings say no. Although the ratings for the 2012 regular season were down from 2011, the NFL still ranked as the highest-rated sport in America, according to AdWeek. Each regular-season game averaged 16.6 million viewers, and ratings were even higher in the playoffs. The Seattle Seahawks/Washington Redskins divisional matchup drew a 23.7 rating. Compare that to Game 7 of the NBA finals this year, which drew a 17.7 overnight rating. The 23.7 dominates the World Series as well, which only pulled a 7.6 on average in 2012.
Merchandising also hasn’t lost anything because of these arrests. There are enough players with a positive image to block out the negatives of these other players. Just this year, Robert Griffin III sold more jerseys in one fiscal year than any other jersey in the history of the NFL.
Would it be nice if these NFL players stopped getting into trouble? Of course. But it is no different than any other league, and the numbers simply don’t say that these arrests are hurting the league’s image.