This column originally appeared in the Sun Chronicle on September 28, 2012
AN INSIDE LOOK
By Bill Gouveia
This is an open letter to National Football League Commissioner
Roger Goodell and all the NFL owners:
As a lifelong
football fan and NFL season ticket-holder for the last four decades, I am
urging you, cajoling you, begging you if that's what it takes - do the right
thing. Put aside your differences, your
egos, and your pride. Bring back the
real NFL officials, and do it today - right now - before you ruin a great game
and an exciting season.
I know you folks
are smart businesspeople. You have built
the most successful sports league in the world.
You take in billions of dollars in revenue, build stadiums that cost
more than the national budget of many small countries, and charge obscene
amounts of money for everything from hot dogs to shirts with your best players
name on them. You've built a veritable
empire, with a game as the foundation.
Are you really
going to continue to risk doing severe and permanent damage to your product
because you can't come to agreement with the people you pay to officiate
it? That just makes no sense. I don't pretend to know all the issues
between you and the real NFL officials, or how many dollars they translate
into. But I do know this - you are
hurting the quality of your brand by using inferior officiating talent
unnecessarily.
I am not saying
this as a Patriots fan disgruntled with a 1-2 start (though I am indeed both
those things). I don't believe my team
has lost any games as a direct result of poor officiating (sorry all you Green
Bay fans), though it certainly hasn't helped.
I'm just tired of watching first-class football ruined by third-class
officiating. As a season ticket-holder,
I'm tired of paying for it. You
cheapened the product but not the price to watch it. You owe me and my fellow fans better.
I was in
Baltimore Sunday night for the nationally-televised game there. I'm pretty sure I recognized one of the
officials from a flag football league.
No doubt he's a nice guy, but I don't think he was prepared for his
current role.
What is wrong
with you? Can't you see the absurdity of
the system you are currently using? I
mean, I live in New England. If we ran
our local towns the way you are running your league, how awful would that be?
What if we hired
well-paid professionals to run our local governments, then let a small group of
people with little experience or expertise have the final say as to what they
have done? Imagine allowing them to
build a game plan based on months of planning and study, then letting all their
work be judged and critiqued by folks basically unfamiliar with the system
itself. How can you allow this to
happen?
What's that? You say that sounds a lot like the Open Town
Meeting system of government most towns around me use? Town officials present complex budgets they
spent months constructing and 150 or so people (most seeing it for the first
time) approve or disapprove it? Um, I guess I see your point.
But that doesn't
change the fact what you are doing is colossally stupid. You are destroying the integrity of the very
game that has made you all millionaires.
And for what? Because the people
you dress up in stripes every week want more money and some long-term
stability?
You are the only
major professional sports league that doesn't employ full-time officials. I understand you play fewer contests, but it
has been pretty clearly demonstrated that your game requires trained
professionals to make sure it is run properly. I speak for football fans
everywhere when I say we have new-found respect for the Zebras, as they are
not-so-affectionately called. They are a
little bit like cops – you don’t always appreciate what they do until you need them.
So clean up your
act and get professional officials back in your professional league. Either that or reduce ticket prices and TV
rights fees to reflect the product you are actually producing. Yeah, I thought so.
And forget what I
said about Town Meeting. I think I need
to use a different example.
Bill Gouveia is a local columnist and can be emailed at aninsidelook@aol.com and followed on Twitter at @Billinsidelook.
No comments:
Post a Comment