NFL, ESPN and Big-Dollar Secrecy
from Consortium News:
NFL, ESPN and Big-Dollar Secrecy
September 17, 2013
Pro football is big business and America’s fascination with often violent sports has made Disney’s ESPN a lucrative franchise. So there is much money on the line over the issue of concussion-related disabilities, explaining the NFL’s desire to keep the medical science secret, Bill Moyers and Michael Winship note.
By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship
When Thomas Jefferson wrote that all men are created equal, his Monticello farm team was obviously not what he had in mind. They were chattel, possessions toiling in his fields. So it’s not lightly – or unreasonable – to invoke the plantation mentality to describe the National Football League.
Tom Van Riper, who covers sports for Forbes magazine, points out that of the 31 owners of NFL teams, 17 – more than half – are billionaires. Many boast of being self-made, in the image of Horatio Alger, but are now ensconced in luxury skyboxes far above the proletarians whose own dreams of glory ride vicariously on the grunts and groans of bulky but agile gladiators only one play away from a career-ending collision with the laws of physics.
For more than a year, public television’s award-winning investigative journalism series FRONTLINE had been collaborating on a new documentary about brain trauma in pro football with journalists from ESPN, the giant sports network. The title: “League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis.”
A hard-hitting promo for the investigation upset ESPN President John Skipper. “Over the top” was his description — too “sensational.” He was so “startled” – his word – that he pulled the plug on ESPN’s partnership with FRONTLINE. The sports network has had a reputation for solid, even bold reporting of controversy and scandal in pro and amateur athletics. Not this time. .......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://consortiumnews.com/2013/09/17/nfl-espn-and-big-dollar-secrecy/
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They faced pressure because the team was negatively portrayed, they had the aging star RB being replaced by the hotshot rookie played by Omar Gooding. The aging RB was also spouse abuser and also had secret kids with other families. They also had a LB which was too slow to tackle the new age QBs such as Luther Hawkins so he resorts to steroids. They had everyone and everything that was big news in the NFL from those days on the same team.
I especially loved Omar Gooding's character who was a coke user. It cracked me up when he was going through severe withdrawals in the first half-- DH rips the IV out of his arm and calls his drug dealer demanding he brings him crack to the players lot. On the way from the locker room to the players lot DH starts throwing up and can not walk any farther. Eventually a teammate comes and finds him on the floor in his own vomit and DH asks him to go buy the crack for him. The teammate agrees and then helps him smoke the crack moments before the second half is supposed to begin. Then his posse killed someone. You also had a Snoop cameo in the show and there's nothing wrong with a Snoop cameo! 