(ThyBlackMan.com) It’s not debatable that the most famous and powerful professional sports league in the U.S. is the National Football League. The NFL’s TV contracts and ratings during the course of every NFL season are some of the best proof of that. Despite the fact that no actual football game is played, the NFL Scouting Combine annually draws tons and tons of TV viewers hoping to catch football players who can help their teams during the NFL Draft. The NFL is such a force in the U.S. that the Super Bowl, as known as the NFL’s championship game, is considered a pseudo national holiday in the U.S. In many people’s eyes, the National Football League can do no wrong. However, the NFL has committed a recent public relations move that can be considered one of its worst in recent memory.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “public relations” as “the business of inducing the public to have understanding for and goodwill toward a person, firm, or institution”. The NFL has made several quality public relations moves over the past two decades including moving the NFL Draft to a different NFL city every year and upgrading kickoff returns in game. However, the NFL recently winning its grievance to stop NFL Players Association Report Cards can be viewed a public relations negative in multiple ways. Last month, an arbitrator found in favor of effectively banning the union from publishing future player report cards and that the report cards violated the collective bargaining agreement by “disparaging NFL clubs and individuals.”
The annual NFLPA report cards issue letter grades in areas such as player amenities, travel accommodations, coaching and ownership. They also focus on how NFL players’ families are treated including family meeting areas pregame and postgame and they matter a lot to NFL players. Every year when they are published, there are NFL organizations that are lauded for their overall amenities and treatment of players and their families while there are other NFL organizations that receive negative attention for being subpar in comparison to other NFL organizations. Having those important factors publicized forces NFL organizations to keep up if they are lacking in areas and improves things overall for all NFL players and NFL organizations, i.e. owners, wanting no publicity about some of the more daily aspects of their organization can be viewed as negative PR.
Over the last 20 years, the NFL is aiming to stop the NFL Players Association’s annual report cards grading each of the 32 franchises can be viewed among the three worst PR moves by the NFL on the last 20 years. Here are the three worst PR decisions by the NFL of the last 20 years (from fifth worst to the worst):
3. NFL wins grievance to halt NFLPA’s public release of team report cards-Not wanting the NFL players to grade the positives and negatives of NFL organizations for public release is not the best look for NFL team owners or NFL organizations.
2. Roger Goodell’s mea culpa on video to Colin Kaepernick-Back in 2020, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell publicly said he wished the league had “listened earlier” to polarizing former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, known for protesting during Star-Spangled banner in 2016. Kaepernick never played in the NFL again after 2016.
1. 2012 “Fail Mary” NFL game-The importance of actual NFL referees was emphasized in 2012 when a last second Hail Mary throw by Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson was first grabbed by Green Bay safety M.D. Jennings. Jennings was able to pin the ball to his body as he fell to the ground and landed on top of Seattle wide receiver Golden Tate. Tate tried to wrestle the ball away, and his efforts led to confusion among the refs. After several minutes of replay review, the NFL replacement refs ruled it was shared possession and a touchdown for the Seahawks. The call was universally considered to be wrong and the call was a major reason that two days later, an agreement was reached to end the referees’ lockout.
Staff Writer; Mark Hines
