The NFL Will Feel The Streisand Effect After Pressuring ESPN To Pull Out Of Frontline Documentary
from the personal-foul,-silencing-critics dept
It never ceases to amaze me how businesses just can’t seem to understand the Streisand Effect, or its sister phenomenon, the cover up is always worse than the crime. Whether it’s small groups like a bunch of straight pride people that seek to silence what was essentially their own strange words, hugely famous celebrities, members of Congress, or even major television networks, the hits keep on coming.
But my ears perk up particularly when an otherwise massively successful company who should know better feels the Streisand slap down. Take the NFL for instance, which is currently suffering under reports that it pressured ESPN to pull out of a partnership in a PBS Frontline documentary on how the NFL has turned a blind eye to players suffering concussions, dementia, and chronic traumatic encephalopathy. According to all parties, it started out so well.
“[PBS’s] Aronson-Rath said that until last Friday, there had been no hint of trouble between “Frontline” and ESPN. She said that “Frontline” had worked “in lock step” with Vince Doria, ESPN’s senior vice president and director of news, and Dwayne Bray, senior coordinating producer in ESPN’s news-gathering unit.”So, what happened on that Friday that caused ESPN to suddenly pull out of the partnership, which would have resulted in shared profits from the documentary? Well, during the previous week, the NFL hosted a meeting with ESPN’s President John Skipper that has been described as “combative.” The NFL, which is currently facing a class-action lawsuit from thousands of former players over the way it dealt with head-trauma and related injuries, is obviously not pleased about the documentary. Roger Goodell, league commissioner, was reportedly particularly upset that ESPN was working on the film in conjunction with its filmmakers. While Greg Aiello, NFL spokesman, insists that they did not ask ESPN to pull out of the project, it’s rather easy to connect the dots when ESPN did just that almost immediately after the meeting and without any discernible business reason.
And discernible business reason other than ESPN pays the NFL roughly $1 billion to broadcast the wildly successful Monday Night Football, an absolute cash cow for the Disney-owned station. In other words, the NFL told ESPN to bail on the project and they complied. Why? Because ESPN isn’t in the journalism business. Despite what they’d like you to think, they’re a marketing company, with any faux journalism done strictly to build up their televised sports products. That’s fine for them, but there’s a problem for the NFL.
That problem is that this story is now everywhere. Deadspin, the NY Times, all over the place. What was once a PBS documentary that might have been lightly covered by ESPN (though not too much, since it doesn’t hurt its own programming that way) has now been driven into the public discourse in typical Streisand-fashion. And, as always seems the case, everyone gets smeared except the actual documentary they want to silence. The NFL looks both meddlesome and as if it has something to hide, ESPN is all the more revealed to be a non-journalistic enterprise, rather than the journalistic one it pretends to be, and the Frontline documentary is getting a ton of attention.
Bang up job of keeping quiet how violent football is, NFL guys!
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: documentary, football, frontline, head trauma, streisand effect
Companies: espn, nfl, pbs
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
It's a good read, but you'll probably never watch the NFL the same way again.
http://web.archive.org/web/20070616092104/http://www.mensjournal.com/feature/M162/M162_Cas ualtiesoftheNFL.html
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
perhaps NFL should have consulted with experts
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Minor error in an otherwise spot on article...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I personally do not find the disclaimer of potential bias found in news shows, such as "Disney is the parent company of ABC News", to be strong enough to cover fake-news advertisements and live-reads.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's already insane the amount of money generated by pro ball. Pissing matches over millions and above are not going to uncommon. What is uncommon is the lengths they will go to protect their turf.
I'm just one non-viewer. Now with the net if I so desired I am sure I could sniff down places that would allow me to see it but it just doesn't hold that much importance to me. I value the b/w more than these money making spectaculars that are pretty much the modern day equivalent to gladiator games.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Kinky
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
NFL: You need to drop your part in that documentary that makes us look bad right now.
ESPN: Why should we?
NFL: Because otherwise we'll stop taking your 1 billion dollars a year and won't let you air NFL games.
ESPN: Oh no! If we stop giving you a billion dollars a year our business will be ruined! But you'll obviously still be just fine despite the billion dollar loss!
NFL: That's right, so what are you going to do?
ESPN: Ok, we'll stop our support for the documentary.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The NFL is bad...high school is worse
What of the poor high school athletes, too young to understand the life-long consequences they will suffer as a result of playing football?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The NFL is bad...high school is worse
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Response to: Anonymous Coward on Aug 23rd, 2013 @ 1:44pm
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The NFL Will Feel The Streisand Effect
You act like the NFL has something to hide regarding head injuries. What do you think? There's former NFL players running around with 9 brain surgeries, 32 years of gran mal seizures, no NFL benefits and had to sue for Work Comp????
Sorry. I forgot, that's me.
ESPN OUTSIDE THE LINES: The Damage Done 020813
http://es.pn/12z0kbJ
KVIE Channel 6 Sidelined: Concussions In Sports 12/19/12
http://vids.kvie.org/video/2318744182
Channel 13 News Sacramento 10/29/12 Terry Tuatolo interview
http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/video/7898539-former-nfl-linebacker-falls-into-homelessness/
Geo rge Visger
Wildlife Biologist/Traumatic Brain Injury Consultant
The Visger Group
www.thevisgergroup.org
SF 49ers 80 & 81
Survivor of 9 NFL Caused Emergency VP Shunt Brain Surgeries
Benefactor of ZERO NFL Benefits
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Thanks for the link, Fish
Anyone concerned about the state of labor unions should be appalled at how Roger et al use their monopoly to bully their laborers. (yeah yeah, many are millionaires, but it doesn't make their treatment at the hands of their "owners" less reprehensible).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]