A Modest Proposal
As I have said before, football combines two of the worst traits of American society: violence and committee meetings. But, if overgrown grown men choose to bear the risks of obliterating their brain functions, chronic obesity and a probable early death, who am I to object? And, believe me, I am not interested in interfering with the rights of millions of Americans who opt to spend their Sunday afternoons and nights, not to mention Monday and Thursday nights, Thanksgiving Day and Sunday morning games from London, observing the spectacle.
No, all I am asking is that the broadcasts of these games stop panning up to the executive suites in today’s versions of the Roman Coliseum, where lions once devoured Christians, to see the reactions of the team’s owner to the latest positive or negative development for his well-armored gladiators. I have always wondered why we should care what Jerry Jones or even well-respected franchisees such as the Rooneys or the Maras have to do with the actual performance on the field. But of course the answer is that they are the ones who decide the pay of the omnipotent commissioner, Roger Goodell, and serve as the supposed protectors of the NFL’s sacred “Shield,” the emblem of the powerful enterprise whose primary purpose is to act as the recipient of the virtually unlimited dollars showered by the TV networks that keeps the whole shebang going.
Now we have the case of Robert Kraft, the owner of the most successful team in recent history, the New England Patriots, which just defied the odds and the relatively ancient arm of its leader, Tom Brady, to capture its sixth Super Bowl title. Kraft has been charged with a first-class misdemeanor for soliciting a prostitute on two successive days near his Palm Beach home on the weekend when his Patriots overcame the Chiefs in the AFC championship, giving them the right to beat the Rams in the lowest scoring contest in SB history. Although Kraft denied he engaged in an illegal act, which is a non-denial denial if I ever heard one, the authorities apparently have the tapes to prove it.
The Patriots, for all their success, have not achieved it without controversy, from play-stealing to Deflategate, and are led by their dour head coach, Bill Bellichick, a man who looks as if his greatest joy is telling a bride that it will rain on her wedding day. Kraft, once Goodell’s bosom buddy, has lost favor over these transgressions, but remains one of the league’s most powerful owners. Now Goodell must deal with the aftermath of Kraft’s legal difficulties.
There is an argument to be made that prostitution is a victimless crime, but in the matter at hand, that is clearly not the case. The establishment Kraft chose to patronize, Orchids of Asia, is the subject of an investigation into sex trafficking involving young Chinese women transported under false pretenses to a familiar fate where they were shifted from location to location to service up to 10 customers a day over 10 or so hours. Kraft got to the place in a chauffeur-driven Bentley, then whisked off by jet to Kansas City to witness the continuation of his team’s glorious run. It is not known how the girls who serviced him got to work on those days.
How the authorities and Goodell deal with Kraft remains to be seen, but the hope is that celebrity and power not get the upper hand. Regardless of the result, however, my personal preference is that if I choose to watch a Patriots game on TV next year, I do not have to watch the cameras pan up to Kraft’s box to see him celebrating another Brady touchdown toss. Justice delayed, but not denied.
But, how will the network fill the time normally spent dissecting the owner’s reactions to every twist and turn on the field? After all, with all the committee meetings, the action that actually occurs during a three and a half hour broadcast is somewhere around 11 minutes. The answer should be obvious. The cameras will focus on the squads of cheerleaders in their skimpy outfits with their breasts and hair having an amplitude of Wonder Woman proportions. But that may backfire and highlight the NFL’s own sexploitation issue, with the women barely compensated to cover their expenses and expected to perform services above and beyond for season ticket holders and other team hangers on. That is where Orchids of Asia and the NFL share a common purpose. They both know the familiar American axiom: Sex Sells.
