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After hearing clips of the press conference from yesterday, I am convinced more than ever that Roger Goodell will go down as the Don King of NFL. Here is my reasoning:
In the 90s, Don King made the heavyweight division of boxing into a huge money maker. The sport was huge back then. But most of his strategies were shortsighted because they looked at short term huge hits and disregarded the long term viability of the sport. He wrapped the whole thing around Mike Tyson and a handful of boxers and never really tried to develop the next wave of boxers. He would push mediocre fighters as contenders to let his bigger stars look like dominant warriors by fast knock outs. By the end of the popularity of the heavyweight division, the main stars were past their prime fighters like Tyson, Evander Holyfield, and George Foreman.
You see the same thing with Goodell. Most of his initiatives are to make huge money now without realizing that it will cheapen the brand. His strategy is to oversaturate the market with NFL products (Thursday night games, Combine coverage, expanding the draft, etc.) and doesn't think if all this overkill is giving fans NFL fatigue. Thursday night games have been a huge short term bonanza for the owners, but we are already seeing signs that it is taking a hit in the ratings. The product is suffering with bad football and fans are tuning out.
Also, Don King was a corrupt promoter who openly flaunted his corruption. As I said before, he would manipulate the rankings and make sure that bums would shoot up the ranks to be the #1 contender so that Mike Tyson could go in and knock them out in a minute on a $1o0 PPV event. Everyone knew what he did and he did it all with a wink and smile.
Goodell is a corrupt commissioner who openly lies about everything and, although he isn't capable of smiling, he does it knowing the NFL has most of the media in their back pocket and won't call him out on what he is. I so wish there was a sport version of politifact.com (a website that judges the truthfulness of politicians' comments). That site would explode with all the lies Goodell sells.
I hope I am wrong, but Mark Cuban may be right. I think the NFL owners are going to regret hitching their wagon to Goodell in the future. I think the NFL could have peaked and on a downward trend. I don't think the NFL will totally collapse like boxing did after King destroyed it, but it could have a MLB type of decline.
In the 90s, Don King made the heavyweight division of boxing into a huge money maker. The sport was huge back then. But most of his strategies were shortsighted because they looked at short term huge hits and disregarded the long term viability of the sport. He wrapped the whole thing around Mike Tyson and a handful of boxers and never really tried to develop the next wave of boxers. He would push mediocre fighters as contenders to let his bigger stars look like dominant warriors by fast knock outs. By the end of the popularity of the heavyweight division, the main stars were past their prime fighters like Tyson, Evander Holyfield, and George Foreman.
You see the same thing with Goodell. Most of his initiatives are to make huge money now without realizing that it will cheapen the brand. His strategy is to oversaturate the market with NFL products (Thursday night games, Combine coverage, expanding the draft, etc.) and doesn't think if all this overkill is giving fans NFL fatigue. Thursday night games have been a huge short term bonanza for the owners, but we are already seeing signs that it is taking a hit in the ratings. The product is suffering with bad football and fans are tuning out.
Also, Don King was a corrupt promoter who openly flaunted his corruption. As I said before, he would manipulate the rankings and make sure that bums would shoot up the ranks to be the #1 contender so that Mike Tyson could go in and knock them out in a minute on a $1o0 PPV event. Everyone knew what he did and he did it all with a wink and smile.
Goodell is a corrupt commissioner who openly lies about everything and, although he isn't capable of smiling, he does it knowing the NFL has most of the media in their back pocket and won't call him out on what he is. I so wish there was a sport version of politifact.com (a website that judges the truthfulness of politicians' comments). That site would explode with all the lies Goodell sells.
I hope I am wrong, but Mark Cuban may be right. I think the NFL owners are going to regret hitching their wagon to Goodell in the future. I think the NFL could have peaked and on a downward trend. I don't think the NFL will totally collapse like boxing did after King destroyed it, but it could have a MLB type of decline.
