FILTHY RICH, THE NFL HAS NO REASON TO CARE ABOUT RACISM

Under a warm California sun, Roger Goodell danced around the league’s myriad issues, a reminder that owners are cushioned from backlash by monster TV ratings and staggering long-term revenues

     Let’s say, for the purpose of unattainable finality, that the NFL shield is rusted beyond recognition. Let’s say the league is corrupt, corroded and criminal, as depicted in a voracious Super Bowl news cycle by relentless media who won’t stop until Roger Goodell hangs from Santa Monica Pier as sharks devour him.

     Let’s say the owners are racists who want only White head coaches and prefer minimal numbers of Blacks and other minorities in executive roles. Let’s say at least two owners have impugned competitive integrity, in the legal gambling era, by offering bribes to tank seasons. Let’s say the owners’ preposterously overpaid stooge/commissioner, Goodell, has no interest in probing Washington’s toxic work environment because he’s protecting Dan Snyder and other league big shots from more damaging, Jon Gruden-like emails. Let’s say the league is still mistreating women employees. Let’s say the league knew Alvin Kamara was a suspect in a vicious, wee-hours beating and still let him play in the Pro Bowl.

     Let’s say the league should be investigated by Congress, the FBI and all American snoops — except Snoop Dogg, somehow part of Sunday’s halftime show despite numerous arrests for guns and drugs — who are hellbent on exposing sports-industry malpractice. Let’s say the NFL shield is just a granular pile of powder.

     Rust, you should know by now, does not concern the NFL. Even if Neil Young once said “it’s better to burn out than it is to rust,’’ this is a league that laughs at any suggestion of a crumbling product, just as it did five years ago, when a mixture of Colin Kaepernick, a concussion crisis and continuing personal conduct issues was supposed to be a lethal cocktail for the owners. We cried “existential demise.’’ They shrugged.

     And now they continue to shrug, if not chortle, having been assured of an additional $113 billion in media rights money through 2033. The TV jackpot grows because Americans consume the NFL in booming numbers far beyond those of any entertainment option in 21st-century life. If the advertisers don’t care about the perceived condition of the shield, they will continue to pour billions into the NFL machine via commercials and sponsorships, which makes it more than worthwhile for networks and streamers to do the same into the next decade. When fans and gamblers don’t care enough about the league’s cultural and integrity problems to turn away from the games, any concept of institutional accountability becomes a farce.

     The league is too big to care and too prosperous to be damaged, which explains why Goodell was able to stage his annual State of The League news conference in the southern California sunshine, on a 79-degree afternoon beside a $6 billion stadium, and pretty much give public-relations lip service to every hard question fired at him. He has been paid $128 million the last two fiscal years to gloss over issues and not say anything that exacerbates public backlash. Again, we came away from his SoFi Stadium stage show asking why he gets away with making the same robotic responses, year after year, though rampant racism and discrimination continue to be an annual sham.

     Of the NFL’s 32 head coaches, only three are Black — and two were hired after former Miami Dolphins coach Brian Flores accused the league of racist hiring practices in an explosive lawsuit last week. Of the 32 team owners, 30 are White — the others a Pakistani-born American, Shad Khan of Jacksonville, and a woman of South Korean descent, Kim Pegula of Buffalo. Seventy percent of the league’s players are Black. Yet nothing ever changes, and every year, Goodell sits there with his microphone and repeats the empty-calorie statements.

     “We won't tolerate racism. We won't tolerate discrimination,’’ he said Wednesday. “If there are policies that we need to modify, we're going to do that. If we've seen evidence of discrimination, we will deal with that in a very serious way that will reflect the fact that we won't tolerate that."

     The man has been commissioner since the summer of 2006, receiving the news during league meetings in suburban Chicago, where he was lounging alone in his room in his boxer shorts when Dan Rooney, then the Pittsburgh Steelers owner, knocked on his door. The old-guard owners, in particular, liked Goodell. He was told to maximize revenues, grow the game, court the networks and steer the league out of any troubled waters. Evidently, he has not been told to diversify a White-run league.

     He was asked about the racial disparities and a failing Rooney Rule. Every answer sounded alike. “We believe in diversity,’’ Goodell said. “We believe it has made us stronger. People who have come into the league who are diverse have been very successful and made us better, and we just have to do a better job. ... Is there another thing that we can do to make sure that we're attracting the best talent and making our league more inclusive? If I had the answer right now, I would give it to you. I would have implemented it.

     “I think we have to continue to look and find and step back and say, ‘We're not doing a good enough job here.’ We need to find better solutions and better outcomes. Let's find more effective policies. Let's make sure everyone understands. Let's make sure that we're looking at diversity and incentivizing that for everybody in our building. ... We're not having the success we want with head coaches. How do we evolve that rule, or do we have to have a new rule? Do we need to find some other way of being able to achieve that outcome? I think we're not going to rest until we find that, until we get those outcomes that are mandatory for us to move forward and have an inclusive league."

     He has perfected the art of talking and saying nothing. Finally, he was reminded that he has been the commish for 15 1/2 years. Is he ashamed not to have found a solution? Isn’t that his job? Aren’t the widespread cries of racism a reflection on him? Does he not take responsibility?

     “Yes, I do,’’ Goodell said. “I’ve said that many times. As a league, I don’t think there’s a subject we’re discussed more as ownership. We all have to bear responsibility. Me as commissioner, too.’’

     He didn’t sound convincing. Nor did he sound like a man prepared to remove Dolphins owner Stephen Ross if he offered Flores $100,000 per loss to tank the 2019 season, as the lawsuit alleged. “If there are violations, they won’t be tolerated,’’ he said. “We’ll deal with it very seriously.’’ Goodell wasn’t even sure of the procedure to oust Ross if necessary. He deferred to the league’s top attorney, Jeff Pash, about whether the owners could eject Ross themselves. “I do believe that the clubs have the authority to remove an owner from the league,’’ he said. “It's a league vote, I believe.’’ He believes?

     Nor did Goodell generate confidence that a league investigation into the Washington workplace debacle — which he confirmed hours after the Commanders announced the appointment of their own outside firm to investigate — would conclude with any removal of Snyder as owner. Roger B. Good is not in the business of firing owners, not in 2022, not when the league soon will be a $25-billion-a-year behemoth about to expand its international portfolio to regular-season games in Germany.

     How about first fixing the wrongs in 32 domestic franchises?

     “We expect to have close to 200 million fans,’’ Goodell raved about the future. “The real objective is how we grow the game globally. It’s never been a better time to be a fan because of the technology. If you see the ratings around the league, more and more people are watching NFL football. We’ve had extraordinary games this year. It’s how do we get more fans and engage them with the fans that we have. The revenue follows that.’’

     Revenue, of course, is the only R-word that matters.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.