I'm a football loving girl who spends every Thursday, Sunday, and Monday by her TV set watching the game. Last year your organization took a lot of heat for treating domestic violence violations with what many saw as a slap on the wrist. Women across our great country were offended and you took steps to correct our perception by hiring women marketers and coming out with the very powerful "No More" campaign. Some of your "No More" commercials actually brought tears to my eyes and as a female fan I applauded you for your step in the right direction although I knew you still had a long way to go.
Yesterday evening as I was scrolling through my Facebook news feed this article and this article caught my attention and then I got mad.
While I don't know much about William Gay and his situation as a Carolina Panthers fan I'm intimately familiar with DeAngelo Williams and his plight to bring awareness to breast cancer. I'm sure as his employer you know that Mr. Williams lost his mother and four aunts to breast cancer, I'm also sure you know that Mr. Williams is the father to two little girls who probably carry a breast cancer gene.
Mr. Williams formally petitioned your organization in an attempt to wear a little bit of pink all year to help keep breast cancer awareness in the minds of female fans long after October has come and gone. Apparently your uniform code is much more important than reminding your female fans that getting screened for breast cancer is important all year not just in October.
I'm sure your response would be if you let Mr. Williams wear pink then you have to let other players like Mr. Gay wear colors to support their causes as well. Is that such a bad thing? Do you not want to put players in front of the media that show the NFL isn't unconcerned with their female fan base?
Imagine if you will for a moment; The TV announcers in booth notice that Mr. Williams has on a pink pair of shoes during a December game, during a lull in the action they point out the pink shoes and there meaning. A female fan watching at home gets the little nudge she needs and makes an appointment to have a mammogram that saves her life. This is a much more productive conversation in my mind than the season's worth of talk surrounding Tom Brady's deflated balls which I've listened to so far.
As a football fan and a female I am asking you to reconsider your stance on letting Mr. Williams and Mr. Gay spread awareness about issues that affect some in your female fan base. Show us we as women really are important to your organization.
Yours in Football,
I hate the NFL. They are horrible in so many aspects.
ReplyDeleteI see the NFL's point about not wanting the messaging to become distracting, but they should allow leeway for some expression, like in eye black or arm bands or something. I understand them not wanting players to go crazy and wear capes or something on the field, regardless of a cause's worthiness, but they just look like insensitive jerks with these actions - especially to not allow the player to wear NFL-issued merchandise beyond October. Then again, if you look at the amount of money made on breast cancer awareness NFL merchandise and the amount actually given to cancer research, none of this is surprising at all.
ReplyDeleteI am over the NFL and everything they do and every choice they make.
ReplyDeleteGreat letter! As a lawyer, I get that they want to keep people to their contracts and not go down a slippery slope (I'm assuming their apparel is included in their contract), but can't they be a little flexible? Especially for something so obviously important to their employee, and especially if they want to keep their women fan base and at least act like they care about the causes the NFL supposedly cares about.
ReplyDeleteSo ridiculous. WTF is wrong with them????????????
ReplyDeleteYeah, I don't get this. It seems like it would be a huge positive to associate NFL players with charity and not just domestic violence. And another commenter said something about their argument being that the messaging is distracting BUT they've got the entire football stadium covered in ads, so really how distracting could it be? And at least this would be player's personal choice of what to support and not which corporation paid the most money for advertising.
ReplyDeleteI am not a fan of the NFL at all. They don't bring awareness to important things, and when they do, they keep all the money instead of donating it to the cause they are supposedly bringing awareness to.
ReplyDeleteI love football, and I can appreciate that there have to be some rules and guidelines but I feel it is only when it benefits them. What does it hurt to have a little pink in the sport?
ReplyDeleteBasically I hate the politics of the NFL. It may be in part to Roger Goodell but whatevs. He stinks and needs to get a clue.
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