As much as I might prefer not to do it, I have to start this letter off with a little bit of congratulations. You and I don't really speak any more, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't acknowledge your success. You really have done it.
For a league that seemed very recently to be facing a real and dangerous crisis of image and process, you've done a remarkable job of making that all go away. I mean, look around. Is anybody talking about Junior Seau anymore? Does anyone even remember Mike Webster? Terry Long, Ray Easterling, Andre Waters, Dave Duerson...gone. Vanished from the public radar. That's a most remarkable achievement in exerting your influence.
I have to say I'm particularly impressed with how you've brought your lapdog ESPN to heel. It was one thing to yank their leash and have them pull away from that partnership with PBS on the Frontline special about that League of Denial book. Let's face it, Jock Central was always a bizarre fit with those Downton Abbey toffs. That was never going to last. But now? You have them squarely in your place. You hand them their scripts and they woof them out most obediently. I suppose the real test will come the next time a well-known former player kills himself or reveals that he's showing signs of CTE on his brain. But the way you've got ESPN whipped, I'll not be at all surprised if they bury it at the 45-minute mark of the 2 a.m. Sportscenter.
All hail the King. When it comes to message control there isn't a politician in the country who couldn't take lessons from you. And the sports landscape? Well, MLB seems content to rely on regional loyalties and count their piles of money. The NBA can gain a little bit of traction when LeBron James decides to change teams or when somebody's leg disintegrates, but one of their teams just hired a female coach. I mean, really, how unmanly is that? Does anybody even know the NHL exists at this point? Oh, and remember when everybody thought NASCAR was the Next Big Thing? Now they have to have a driver run over another driver, literally, to get the kind of attention you get for changing breakfast cereals. OK, that World Cup business was a bit pesky over the summer, but obviously people who follow that aren't real Americans anyway -- after all, Germany's never won a Super Bowl, right? So really, with a little bit of backup vocals from your farm system in college football, you rule the cultural landscape. (And it's really quite sweet how the big boys of your farm system just got their way so that they can make themselves even more like you. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery as they say. And good for them that they'll have even more freedom to drop the pretense of academics and fulfill their true identity as football factories, supplying talent to you.)
So congratulations, you've won.
Although (and I hate to bring it up) there is going to be one little problem with being the undisputed champion, the top of the heap, the big dog. Now that you're the only real game in town, every little pipsqueak sportswriter or failed third-team punter is going to have only you to pick on whenever something goes wrong.
Something going wrong
Clearly that writer didn't get his marching orders. Ray Rice beat his wife like a piñata, and maybe she tried to hit him too, but he made the mistake of dragging her around, Neanderthal-style, where there were cameras to record the deed. I know, I know, you awarded him the punishment due according to your rules, but darn it, people keep insisting that smacking a woman around calls for more than a two-game suspension, even if Ray Rice is a "heckuva guy." Next time I'm sure you'll make sure there are no cameras around, but I know it's got to be a pain in the neck to have to deal with all of these wusses who don't understand what it means to be a Real Man's Sport. I'm sure Bill Simmons will disappear that writer a.s.a.p. -- perhaps he'll have him air-dropped into Donetsk or Mosul on the pretense of a story about soccer in the midst of war or something. Whatever it takes, I'm sure ESPN will make sure and do your bidding.
But still, this kind of thing is going to happen when you're the undisputed Alpha Dog. After all, is anyone really going to care if Yasiel Puig throws some woman up against a wall, or if Chris Bosh does, or whoever actually plays hockey? But when it happens to one of yours somebody is going to decide to pretend they can take you to task over it, whether it's a rogue sportswriter or a two-bit member of Congress, or a preacher without a call writing a blog that nobody reads.
Oh, that brings me to the most impressive part. You would think the Christian church would have a big problem with you, as a rival for their putative big day of the week, but no. They're almost as badly whipped for you as ESPN is, even without a cut of your multi-billions of yearly profits. Churches accommodate their schedules for you, especially when the big game rolls around. They totally buy into your model of Real Man's Sport, and hold up your players as their role models. Preachers even use it in their sermons (I know, I saw it several years ago back in south Florida), paint up the platform to look like a gridiron, the whole works. Damned impressive.
Anyway, back to the little peons who pick on you (which, aside from a few pathetic souls, won't come from the church, I'm sure). These people who file lawsuits about CTE or painkillers, those ingrates who don't appreciate how you took care of them and allowed them to keep playing a Real Man's Sport even if their bodies didn't want to, well, I'm sure you've got that covered. A few new seat licenses from that new stadium in Santa Clara or some new pink jersey tops in the online store will take care of that, I'd guess. But you know, that kind of thing will keep happening. For a while it was baseball that had to be the cutting edge for all of these social concerns, and sometimes managed to come through (sports integration, hard as it was) and sometimes they fell flat (the cocaine rangers of the 70s and 80s come to mind, but for much of the twentieth century, MLB was the one that led with its chin, and other sports like yours could follow after with much less scrutiny. But now that you've buried everybody else, you get to be the one to lead.
Michael Sam is your test case. Does he play, or does your bro base win out and Sam gets quietly cut even if he makes all the plays? You have your talking heads in place on Sportscenter and other places (nice try, but Tony Dungy isn't going to say anything you don't tell him to say) to provide the media distraction necessary to brand Sam as a media distraction. How long does it take to pull the trigger? Or can you actually manage to be a twenty-first century sport after all, even if his existence offends your status as a Real Man's Sport?
Anyway, good luck with all that. Not that I really mean it, but you have taken over as the hyper-steroidal Death Star of American culture, so I suppose in some sense I have to hope you get it right. My vocation, presuming I end up called to one, is going to be difficult enough as it is without having to preach against you all the time. And if I end up with a lot of writing as my life's calling, well, then I'll have to be one of those little pipsqueaks picking on you because, well, you're the Alpha Dog, with no one else to challenge you. So anyway, good luck with the moral leadership and all that. Given the tenor of your culture over the last several decades, you're going to need it.
Sincerely,
A Pipsqueak.
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