For more than 20 years, the NFL has owned and operated NFL Media. The conflict of interest resided in plain sight. And few seemed to regard it as the problem that it was, and is.
With the NFL in the process of acquiring 10 percent of ESPN, the vibe has dramatically changed.
Anything and everything ESPN reports about the NFL will be scrutinized. How can it not be? While most have barely shrugged at the NFL’s total control over its in-house media outlet, the fact that the NFL will own one tenth of a massive, global sports conglomerate will create constant questions about things said, and not said, by ESPN about the NFL.
Commissioner Roger Goodell’s recent prerecorded “nothing will change” message to ESPN employees won’t change that. Beyond the reasons we identified in response to the original article, the NFL — without owning part of ESPN — successfully squeezed the network to cancel the popular scripted series Playmakers.
“Everyone feels that it’s a rather gross mischaracterization of our sport,” Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said of the ESPN series, before ESPN killed it. Likewise, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie said this, in 2003: “How would they like it if Minnie Mouse were portrayed as Pablo Escobar and the Magic Kingdom as a drug cartel?”
Twenty-two years later, the NFL is about to own a piece of ESPN. In other words, don’t expect a Playmakers reboot.
The recent news that the Spike Lee/Colin Kaepernick collaboration won’t be televised by ESPN has prompted a knee-jerk reaction that the NFL put the kibosh on the Kaepernick docuseries. Based on things I’ve separately heard and sensed, I believe the project was destined to die without the NFL on deck to own a piece of ESPN. But the NFL-ESPN relationship will make reasonable people believe the seeds for the scrapping of the show were planted the moment it appeared the NFL would end up owning part of ESPN.
There will also be issues about the timing of certain reports, if those reports ever even become reports. It’s fair to wonder, for example, whether ESPN’s new look at the physical and mental toll of pro football on the 1988 Saints was originally slated for publication at a time when it would have been more likely to move the needle. Instead, it has landed in the dog days of August.
By way of comparison, ESPN dropped a lengthy story about the Patriots on September 8, 2015 — two days before the Patriots opened the season with a Thursday night home game. The publication was calculated to create a maximum stir. And it did.
The scrutiny is unavoidable. Anything and everything ESPN reports about the NFL will be run through the “how did the NFL influence this?” lens. It’s a basic reality of the NFL deciding to take a significant equity stake in a broadcast partner.
Time will tell whether it was worth it. Roughly a decade ago, the NFL scrapped the tax-exempt status of the league office because it had become a chronic P.R. problem. Put simply, the NFL decided that the financial benefits no longer justified the criticism.
When it comes to the NFL’s eventual ownership of ESPN (if regulatory approval is secured), there could be a point at which the league decides that the constant questions about the ESPN relationship point to a business decision to cash out.