Is powerhouse NFL at crossroads?
Ten or 15 years from now, the business barons who run the National Football League will look back at the 2014 season and know the answer:
Was the crisis of September 2014 only a temporary setback in the quest to achieve $25 billion in annual revenue by 2027?
Or was it the start of an insidious pattern — the comedown of a league that had gotten so popular and arrogant that it failed to effectively address serious threats, from the long-term health risks of concussions to a disturbing trend of NFL players accused of committing crimes against women and children?
It all depends on what the league does next, various experts told USA TODAY Sports. But one thing's certain: The most powerful sports league on the planet is facing challenges unlike anything before, driven by a new awareness of the game's ugly underside and an expanded social media landscape keeping the public's attention on the pervasive societal problem of domestic violence.
"We're beginning to see cracks in the shield," said Jason Maloni, who specializes in crisis communications at Levick, a public relations firm in Washington, D.C. "They may be faint cracks, but they deserve a great deal of attention, because faint cracks always become larger cracks."
Sponsors: Some publicly rebuked the league this week over how it handled criminal cases involving several players, including running backs Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice.
The Radisson hotel chain temporarily cut ties with the Minnesota Vikings after the team initially decided to let Peterson play despite a pending indictment on charges of injuring his son when he whipped him.
PepsiCo chairwoman Indra Nooyi issued a statement expressing dismay at "the repugnant behavior of a few players" but expressing confidence in NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to solve the problem. The food and beverage conglomerate has a deal with the NFL that may be worth $2.3 billion over 10 years, according to the Wall Street Journal.
And Anheuser-Busch, the beer manufacturer that is halfway through a six-year, $1.2 billion deal with the NFL, said, "We are not yet satisfied with the league's handling of behaviors that so clearly go against our own company culture and moral code."
Media spotlight: The digital media landscape dominated the discussion about Rice and Peterson, seemingly catching the league flat-footed as the public saw video of Rice striking his then-fiancée and viewed leaked photos of the marks Peterson left on his 4-year-old son after he whipped him.
Disturbing trends: Player arrests and domestic violence cases are nothing new to the NFL. Since January 2000, there have been at least 732 arrests and criminal cases of active NFL players, according to a database kept by USA TODAY Sports — a rate of arrests that is less than that of the general population. Of those incidents, 90 involved domestic violence cases — offenses that rarely drew more than a one- or two-game suspension from the NFL.
But the Rice case was unlike any other NFL domestic incident in recent years: Video of him punching out his future wife in an Atlantic City casino elevator was instantly shareable online. Twitter and Facebook didn't exist before 2004, but now they're both instant broadcasting sites where public opinion can quickly reach critical mass.
"Now social media is creating the ultimate grand, grand jury, where everybody is seeing the evidence before the NFL has a chance to gather and formulate a response and plan of action," said Benjamin Hordell, a partner at New Jersey-based DXagency, a marketing firm that has worked with several networks and sports businesses. "In response, (the NFL) is almost rushing it now and making very poor decisions."
Either that or the league wasn't nearly as tough on these issues previously as the public now demands.
Changing times
Consider how the NFL handled past cases involving domestic violence.
– In 2004, Denver Broncos tight end Dwayne Carswell pleaded guilty to battery after a 2003 arrest in Atlanta. A complaint said Carswell picked up a woman by her neck and she had a bite wound on her arm.
– In 2005, Tennessee Titans tackle Brad Hopkins pleaded guilty to assaulting his wife. The police report said he choked her.
– In 2010, Miami Dolphins tackle Tony McDaniel was arrested on a domestic violence charge and accused of shattering his girlfriend's phone and shoving her to the ground, where she allegedly hit her head. Police found scratches on the woman but no head injuries. McDaniel pleaded no contest to an amended charge of disorderly conduct.
In all three cases, and many similar ones, the players involved drew one-game suspensions.
There was no video of those incidents to be aired by the gossip site TMZ, which didn't launch until 2005. Facebook and Twitter either didn't exist or weren't as pervasive as they are now.
Fans and sponsors instead often found out about such incidents in the newspaper, on the radio or on television, sometimes not until a day later. With fewer media outlets, it was easier for the league to control the story.
"Athletes have been crossing the line for many, many years," Maloni said. "What's new is the echo chamber (of social media). What's new is visceral pictures and videos on the Internet. I imagine a player of Adrian Peterson's stature might have gotten him a pass (from the league) before, but the pictures of his child's injuries make it a lot more vivid for everybody."
A grand jury in Texas indicted Peterson last week on a charge of injury to a child. After sitting him out for one game, the Vikings initially planned to let Peterson play this weekend. Under the old way of doing business, that would be considered fairly routine — allowing a player to play while his legal case remained pending.
This time was different. The governor of Minnesota even called for Peterson's suspension. And now Peterson is deactivated again after Vikings owner Zygi Wilf said, "We made a mistake, and we needed to get this right."
More pressure
Add it all up, and the public pressure roared at the league unlike any time previously. Planes buzzed over stadiums, towing messages that called for the resignation of Commissioner Roger Goodell, who made $44 million in the fiscal year ending in 2013, according to the league's most recently available tax form.
Goodell even seemed to respond to the pressure by changing his mind twice over what punishment to give Rice. After he first gave Rice a two-game suspension in July, criticism started to boil. So Goodell admitted a mistake and unveiled a new policy in August that included a six-game suspension for first-time offenders.
That was before TMZ aired footage of the Rice incident captured inside the elevator. Amid even greater public outrage, the Ravens cut Rice and the NFL suspended him indefinitely.
The ever-evolving punishments gave the impression that league officials "don't have their stuff together," Hordell said.
The cracks seemed to come so suddenly, just a few months after the NFL appeared to be on an unstoppable march — a seemingly invincible brand that had mastered the lucrative mix of television, advertising, sports and culture. In February, the league attracted the largest television audience in U.S. history, 111.5 million viewers for the Super Bowl.
The league has revenues of about $10 billion, comparable to the gross domestic products of several small countries, such as the Bahamas.
Despite the controversy, it's still the biggest and the best in terms of viewership and revenue. Last week, the NFL's Thursday night game drew more than 20 million viewers, the biggest Thursday night audience for any CBS show since 2007.
'Greatest vulnerability'
But experts say the league's popularity could wane if it doesn't make changes in response to the crises, not only in handling misconduct but also player safety and concussions. Adding to the bonfire, court documents released last week showed the NFL itself estimated nearly one-third of former players would suffer from neurocognitive problems stemming from brain damage.
Such knowledge could have a profound effect on whether parents allow their children to play or watch football, impacting the game's future popularity.
"When you know the likelihood of those kinds of injuries, it makes you step back," said Ann Bastianelli, senior lecturer of marketing at Indiana University.
To decrease the risk of brain damage, the league might have to take away or limit a marketing asset that helps make it popular — brain-rattling collisions.
"It's their point of greatest vulnerability," sports economist Andrew Zimbalist told USA TODAY Sports. "This latest report is sufficiently scary that something dramatic has to be done."
The league did something dramatic this week – announcing that four women would serve as senior advisers to shape league policies concerning domestic violence and social responsibility.
A major question is whether the women will have authority or fill only an advisory role to Goodell. The league didn't respond to a message seeking comment.
The league also didn't respond to a question from USA TODAY Sports about why it is hiring new advisors and stiffening its domestic violence policy now – after 90 alleged incidents since 2000. Why didn't the league take drastic action in 2012, when Kansas City Chiefs player Jovan Belcher shot and killed his girlfriend before fatally shooting himself at the team's training facility?
The answer may be that, even two years later, it's a different world. Without repairs, those cracks in the NFL shield will only spread. And then fans may start asking themselves an important question, Bastianelli said:
"At what cost do we want to continue to watch this?"