An Open Letter To NFL Commissioner Goodell

Dear Mr. Roger Goodell:

As commissioner of the National Football League, you command a multi-billion dollar empire awash in money. Team owners rake in millions of dollars each season in television revenue. Your employees are some of the wealthiest Americans.  Your salary places you in the top one percent.

Your league has been granted an antitrust exemption no other business enjoys. Some of the world's richest companies sponsor the NFL. Your plush stadiums are often bankrolled by municipalities. The media celebrates the NFL with fawning news coverage no other business can match.

With all these advantages, it seems odd that the NFL and its players indict America as a country plagued with inequality.  Protests over unfairness have become a regular feature of league games. It is a real head scratcher for most Americans who can only dream of becoming millionaires.

For average Joe's, real inequality exists between their income and that of an NFL quarterback drawing seven-figures.  The average 25-to-34 year old in America has a household income of $39,416.  The minimum salary for NFL rookies fresh from college is $365,000 annually.

The league-wide annual average salary for an NFL player is $1.9 million. That does not include endorsements, appearance fees and other sources of income which can push a player's total income into the stratosphere. All that money means a lifestyle and opportunities most of us will never know.

Despite every advantage of privileged status, your ingrate employees are some of the worst behaved men in America.  Since 2000, NFL players have rap sheets as long as some criminals behind bars. Take a peek at these numbers from your own league reports:

218 arrests for Driving Under the Influence (DUI)
100 arrests for Drug related crimes
98 arrests for Domestic Violence
74 arrests for Assaults
44 arrests for Disorderly Conduct

Even those appalling figures don't capture the extent of player thuggery.  For example, the stats do not include charges that never result in arrests. Unlike NFL players, average Americans don't get a free pass when they break the law. Your lawyered-up players avoid jail and receive a league wrist slap.

Since your players want to address inequality, here is something that caught my eye.  An army private first class is paid $22,714 annually.  For that piddling amount, the solider is expected to protect and defend our country, which may require the ultimate sacrifice of life in battle.

Need more examples of inequality?  Try this one.  The average cost of a ticket for an NFL game is $172.  That means a family of four would have to shell out $688 to see a single game. Include parking, food, drinks and a game program and that's an average family's wages for a whole week.

That is why it seems strange for your players to choose to insult the country that has afforded them such extravagance. Most are taking a knee during the playing of the National Anthem, a song that has united America's people even in the worst of times.  Their action divides the country.

These protests are inflaming the passions of a nation and damaging the NFL brand you so zealously protect.  Ticket sales have fallen 20% for NFL teams over the first three weeks of the season. Television ratings have declined from 6% to 31% in some markets.  Merchandise sales are down.

A new poll by the Washington-based Winston Group finds that favorable ratings for the NFL have tumbled from 57% to 44% from the end of August to September 30.  Under your leadership, the league now has the highest unfavorable rating of any major sport.  Why the fall from grace?

Americans don't like to mix politics and sports.  Sports is a welcome distraction from real life for most people. Contests, even those on the NFL's grand stage, are just games.  They are not life-and-death struggles.  No player has come home in a flag-draped coffin after an NFL game.

I know you have defended your employees right to free speech.  I do too.  But your own rules require players to stand at attention during the playing of the National Anthem.  So why don't you enforce the rule?  You pocket nearly $30 million in annual salary and bonuses to make these decisions.

The truth is that you and your employees have let President Trump's criticism get under your thin skins. You are acting like the coddled millionaires you are.  If your players are so repulsed by our anthem, I hear there are openings in the Canadian Football League.  Of course, they'll take a pay cut.

Money is the NFL's only God. Falling ratings and declining ticket sales are getting the attention of jet setting owners.  However, they deserve some of the blame because these morons have allowed you to surrender your authority to employees bent on mocking America.  We won't stand for it anymore.

A former fan,

Drew Roy