The NFL Shouldn't Be A Platform For Free Speech
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By Mark [email protected]
Let me take you back in time, to when I worked security at University of Kansas men’s basketball games. When we let the students into the fieldhouse, (in our pre 9/11 world) each was subject to a search of anything they carried in for contraband such as pre-shredded confetti (which, when soaked with spilled soda, is a real drag to clean up) and we pre-screened any signs the students wanted to bring in with the specific intent of getting their smiling faces and signs on national television.
We security people had clear direction; nothing political or controversial. If in doubt, there was a representative of the athletic department who made the final call. The student was always given the option of taking their sign and leaving.
A young man brought a sign with an environmental message, and I told him his options, leave the sign and go to the game, or take the sign and leave Allen Field House. No, I wasn’t going to hold his sign during the game; if he wanted it, he had to leave with it.
“That’s censorship!” he said predictably.
“How so?”
“Because you’re not letting me express my views!”
“Sure I am. You just can’t do it here,” I said, ending the discussion with “If you want to take your sign and parade up and down Massachusetts Street (the main drag in downtown Lawrence, Kan.), take your sign and go. If you’d like to rent the fieldhouse and invite ESPN to televise your event, go for it. But the athletic department is not obligated to provide you with a platform to express your views.”
He went to the game, and the sign was tossed with the first round of trash.
Rams players Kenny Britt, Jared Cook, Chris Givens, Stedman Bailey and Tavon Austin have the same freedom of speech every other American is granted. I do not think they should check their brains at the locker room door. Before I go further, I want to say I’m giving the five players, and any others who did likewise, the benefit of the doubt. They weren’t supporting looting and the commission of other crimes; at least not intentionally.
The NFL is a business; its product is the entertainment provided by its players. The league takes in billions of dollars from other businesses paying to use the NFL platform to sell snack chips, soda, financial services and prescription drugs I’m not comfortable discussing with my grade school children. The league, and its corporate sponsors, have every right to protect the money-making machine financing the ever-increasingly large contracts we all talk about.
If athletes, or any other celebrity, want to peaceably support any cause, on their own time, I support that right wholeheartedly. But they’ll need to fully understand the ramifications of their actions. Michael Jordan was once asked why he turned down the opportunity to speak at the Democratic National Convention. He said “because Republicans buy sneakers, too.”
The NFL is not responsible for providing a platform for players, coaches, spectators or anyone else to express their views. I think the league chose to take no action against the players because Commissioner Roger Goodell and his entourage have already screwed up the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson issues. I have a feeling any discussions between the league, the team and the players took place behind closed doors. The league simply does not want the publicity, or the responsibility, of dealing with this while it’s hot.
The bigger issue is race relations in our country, and no one wants to set the clock back several decades. I like to think the sports world has helped society make progress, because it doesn’t matter what color you are. The big questions are “can you play? Can you make our team better?” We all know we’ve looked over a myriad of transgressions for someone who can answer “yes.”
If we’ve learned nothing else in the last week, it’s that there’s a long way to go in race relations in America, and it’s going to be a lot of work to get there.
And not everyone will be on board with it.[[In-content Ad]]
Let me take you back in time, to when I worked security at University of Kansas men’s basketball games. When we let the students into the fieldhouse, (in our pre 9/11 world) each was subject to a search of anything they carried in for contraband such as pre-shredded confetti (which, when soaked with spilled soda, is a real drag to clean up) and we pre-screened any signs the students wanted to bring in with the specific intent of getting their smiling faces and signs on national television.
We security people had clear direction; nothing political or controversial. If in doubt, there was a representative of the athletic department who made the final call. The student was always given the option of taking their sign and leaving.
A young man brought a sign with an environmental message, and I told him his options, leave the sign and go to the game, or take the sign and leave Allen Field House. No, I wasn’t going to hold his sign during the game; if he wanted it, he had to leave with it.
“That’s censorship!” he said predictably.
“How so?”
“Because you’re not letting me express my views!”
“Sure I am. You just can’t do it here,” I said, ending the discussion with “If you want to take your sign and parade up and down Massachusetts Street (the main drag in downtown Lawrence, Kan.), take your sign and go. If you’d like to rent the fieldhouse and invite ESPN to televise your event, go for it. But the athletic department is not obligated to provide you with a platform to express your views.”
He went to the game, and the sign was tossed with the first round of trash.
Rams players Kenny Britt, Jared Cook, Chris Givens, Stedman Bailey and Tavon Austin have the same freedom of speech every other American is granted. I do not think they should check their brains at the locker room door. Before I go further, I want to say I’m giving the five players, and any others who did likewise, the benefit of the doubt. They weren’t supporting looting and the commission of other crimes; at least not intentionally.
The NFL is a business; its product is the entertainment provided by its players. The league takes in billions of dollars from other businesses paying to use the NFL platform to sell snack chips, soda, financial services and prescription drugs I’m not comfortable discussing with my grade school children. The league, and its corporate sponsors, have every right to protect the money-making machine financing the ever-increasingly large contracts we all talk about.
If athletes, or any other celebrity, want to peaceably support any cause, on their own time, I support that right wholeheartedly. But they’ll need to fully understand the ramifications of their actions. Michael Jordan was once asked why he turned down the opportunity to speak at the Democratic National Convention. He said “because Republicans buy sneakers, too.”
The NFL is not responsible for providing a platform for players, coaches, spectators or anyone else to express their views. I think the league chose to take no action against the players because Commissioner Roger Goodell and his entourage have already screwed up the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson issues. I have a feeling any discussions between the league, the team and the players took place behind closed doors. The league simply does not want the publicity, or the responsibility, of dealing with this while it’s hot.
The bigger issue is race relations in our country, and no one wants to set the clock back several decades. I like to think the sports world has helped society make progress, because it doesn’t matter what color you are. The big questions are “can you play? Can you make our team better?” We all know we’ve looked over a myriad of transgressions for someone who can answer “yes.”
If we’ve learned nothing else in the last week, it’s that there’s a long way to go in race relations in America, and it’s going to be a lot of work to get there.
And not everyone will be on board with it.[[In-content Ad]]
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