Roger Goodell has 44 million reasons to scrap together plausible denial in his handling of the Ray Rice domestic abuse scandal. Goodell's compensation package for being NFL Commissioner is $44 million per year. That is almost double a star major league pitching ace's annual salary.
Goodell is now the target of social and political quivers. Pro sports in America has taken over as the largest institutions in conjunction, perhaps, with the rise of entertainment technology and more leisure time due to underemployment in various traditional work sectors. Entertainment is escapism. When real world issues collide with an entertainment game, things can get complicated quickly.
Goodell muffled the punt, and is being called for unsportsmanlike conduct. He may get ejected from his own game.
The world was revolted by the release of the elevator tape which showed a brutal act of domestic violence. The question is whether Goodell, who as judge and jury of all player behavior in his league, saw this tape prior to giving Rice only a two game suspension. If so, he was an idiot and liar because he said this week he never saw the tape until recently. The AP story states the police gave the NFL a copy of the tape three months ago, and has a voice mail confirmation from the league office of its receipt and viewing. The public backlash is getting intense. NY Post headline rewrites the NFL as standing for "National Football Liars."
Major sports are all about public image because major corporations do not want associate themselves with negative public perception. There still is a guilt by association in brand marketing.
Goodell has lashed severe penalties in his 8 year tenure as commissioner. He whacked the New Orleans Saints and coach Sean Payton for Bountygate. In that scandal, he stated that "ignorance is no defense" to the team's explanation of the events.
The growing problem with all professional sports is that the commissioners are seizing too much authority over teams, players under the cover of some kind of "institutional control." To protect the game, he must police the game. Now, this goes beyond in-game infractions to outside criminal behavior and moral indiscretions. A prime example of this was the NCAA penalties against Penn St. for criminal child abuse at the school. Many people, including the governor, deplored the interference and sanctions against Penn St. which is beyond the charter of the NCAA. Recently, the NCAA backed off some of the sanctions but the matter is still in litigation.
Now, many employers have moral clauses in the employee contracts. But football, baseball, basketball, hockey all have collective bargaining agreements which should take care of player disciplinary actions. However, the union has been silent in the Rice case. Commissioners are using the old baseball "best interests of the game" as an inherit power to do whatever they want to preserve the status of the sport and their iron fist control over it. But many people really believe it should be the team, not the league, that should take action against one of its employees for bad behavior which is disruptive to the team.
Also, there is a large percentage of people who believe that in criminal matters, the team and league should just defer to punishment and judgments of the court system against its players. But in the Rice case, Rice skated because he made a quick deal for a diversion program so the charges will go away without a conviction. Prosecutors made that decision after seeing the evidence, including the tapes, so it hard to imagine that Baltimore citizens won't be upset with their local authorities.
Since Goodell is employed by the NFL owners, they will have to make the ultimate decision on Goodell's fate. As more and more negative press, possible pending Congressional investigations, and now an expensive external investigation, the Rice scandal continues to grow. Owners do not like to be in the negative spot light. It is bad for business. It is bad for their reputation. And they don't want to be ambushed by reporters asking embarrassing questions.
In Goodell's case, he lived by his sword, and that same sword may take himself down.
