What’s done in the dark always comes to light. However, what happens when people become numb to the dirt that’s revealed? The latest scandal involving the NFL shows that we might have reached that point.
During Donald Trump's first term in office, the NFL and the president frequently clashed, making the intersection of politics and sports a regular topic in the news. However, despite the past turmoil, America's most popular sports league is now caught in one of its most serious scandals. Surprisingly, it seems that no one outside the sports world is paying attention, even though the situation feels like something straight out of a political playbook.
After weeks of rumors, it was recently confirmed that the NFL and NFL Players Association leadership had made a secret pact. League executives had urged team owners to decrease the amount of guaranteed money players could receive. Given the league's history of questionable behavior, it's not surprising that the NFL and its owners wanted to limit the financial benefits for athletes in a violent sport that doesn’t offer guaranteed contracts to all players. However, the most shocking aspect is that the very leadership appointed to advocate for the players' rights was helping keep it all under wraps.
Not only did a bunch of old, white, wealthy men come up with a plan to not give guaranteed millions to most players in a majority Black league, but the man who’s supposed to be in charge of protecting the players is Black.
As the old African American proverb goes: “All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk.”