MICHAEL KNIGHT

Sponsors shifting expectations for professional athletes

Adrian Peterson is one of many professional athletes in trouble with the law.

While professional athletes getting in trouble with the law is nothing new, but it certainly brings to light the major leagues’ primary concern: money.

Professional athletes are well known for having highly publicized run-ins with the law. The major leagues have usually responded by handing out suspensions lasting for a few games or, in some more extreme cases, for entire seasons. For the most part, though, minor felonies and misdemeanors have been punished lightly and a player’s career wasn’t overly impacted by their offence — until recently. A few players’ recent wrongdoings have led leagues to get tough on crime and change the way they expect athletes to behave.

The shift in personal conduct expectations stems from an incident involving NFL player Ray Rice in 2014. In February, Rice was arrested for an incident occurring at a casino in New Jersey. He was charged with assault in March and the NFL responded by suspending Rice for two games. In September, TMZ leaked a surveillance video from the casino’s security system that showed Rice knocking out his then-fiancée with a punch. Public outcry was immense with many fans returning their Rice jerseys demanding a refund. An indefinite suspension was doled out after the NFL was denounced for its light punishment of Rice. The suspension is upheld to date.

Since the latest Rice suspension, NFL running back for the Minnesota Vikings Adrian Peterson and NHL defenceman for the Los Angeles Kings Slava Voynov have both been involved in similar domestic violence incidents. The respective leagues were quick to indefinitely suspend both players. It is understandable as to why indefinite suspensions are given: let the judicial system go through its process and then the leagues can hand out proper punishment after a ruling has been reached. However, the leagues seldom used this reasoning in the past and were hesitant to suspend players even when the players were charged with aggravated assault or driving under the influence causing death.

With no new radical commissioners to blame, what could have caused the sudden change in mindset? Although the loss of fans over an incidents like these would be so minimal that the leagues wouldn’t feel a dip in revenue, the reasoning is closely linked to money: sponsorship deals.

After the Rice and Peterson incidents, many league sponsors made it publicly aware that they were unimpressed with the situation in the NFL and that they would be monitoring in closely. Long-time endorsers like PepsiCo, Anheuser-Busch and Covergirl were among those concerned with the situation. Luckily for the league, the NFL righted the ship before any big names pulled their funding.

Individual teams were not so lucky, though. Radisson Hotels ended its sponsorship of the Minnesota Vikings and Nike stated they would stop producing Peterson jerseys. The risk of losing out on lucrative sponsorship deals is what prompted the NFL to re-evaluate its strategy regarding the player conduct cases it handled. The same risk prompted the NHL to act swiftly with the suspension of Voynov and you can bet your bottom dollar that as soon as any similar incidents arise in the coming months that the governing leagues will act in a similar manner.

Sponsoring companies don’t want to be associated with any source of negativity so it makes sense that they would look at cutting ties with a sports league. Yes, the big leagues value their public image and are genuinely concerned with how their players act, but neither of those come anywhere near their concern of how much money is in their pockets.

—

Photo: Mike Morbeck/Flickr