Too many of the sports leagues we love are led by soulless men in empty suits
This is the Morning Win, by Andy Nesbitt.
If you've been paying attention at all to sports this past week then you know that it hasn't been a feel-good time to be a fan of sports.
The leagues that we love, as the headline says above, are led by soulless men in suits who are often more concerned with protecting their jobs than doing the right things.
Three of those men - Roger Goodell, Rob Manfred, and Gary Bettman - have given obvious examples of that this week and in a perfect world all three of those guys would be cleaning out their offices today.
But, the world is far from perfect so that won't be happening, unfortunately.
Let's look at what these men have done this week:
Roger Goodell and the NFL are doing their best to withhold findings from an investigation against the Washington Football Team that could possibly open up a huge, disgusting can of worms that could tarnish the league, and many rich guys in suits, forever.
Here's an empty thing Goodell said this week about the secretive WFT investigation and the team's owner, Daniel Snyder:
"I do think (Snyder) has been held accountable. More importantly, steps were put in place to make sure it doesn't happen again."
Steps were put in place! What are those steps? We have no idea. But they are in place!
We do know that Snyder was fined $10 million by the NFL, which sounds like a lot to you and me but really isn't a lot for someone who is worth over $4 billion.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is taking in a World Series that features one franchise that got caught cheating a few years ago and another team whose fans continually use a racist chant to cheer on their team. Manfred didn't suspend any of the players who cheated and he's done little to help stop the Tomahawk Chop in Atlanta.
Here's an empty thing Manfred said this week about Atlanta's nickname and the possibility of the franchise changing its nickname:
"We don’t market our game on a nationwide basis. Ours is an everyday game. You’ve gotta sell tickets every single day to the fans in that market. And there are all sorts of differences between the regions in terms of how the teams are marketed.”
I'd like to rip that statement but I have no idea what that statement even means. It's just a bunch of words thrown together by a man who doesn't want to say anything of substance, it seems.
Then there's Bettman, who should be ashamed and disgusted this morning for what he allowed to happen last night in Florida, and for the sickening acts that happened in Chicago back in 2010.
The Blackhawks sexual abuse case took a heartbreaking turn yesterday when former player Kyle Beach came forward as John Doe 1 in the independent investigation that showed that Beach had been sexually assaulted by Brad Aldrich, the team's former video coach, in May 2010 and was threatened into keeping quiet about it for fear of retribution.
The Blackhawks coach at the time was Joel Quenneville and the 107-page report on the investigation said that Quenneville was aware of the situation in 2010 but didn't do anything about it.
You know what Quenneville is up to these days? He's coaching the Florida Panthers. And you know what he was allowed to do last night? Coach a NHL game.
How-in-the-what is that allowed to happen?
Well, Quenneville was able to coach because he has a meeting with Bettman today in New York City where the two men will talk about the Blackhawks' sexual abuse case. Hopefully that meeting will lead to Quenneville's firing because he doesn't deserve to hold a job in professional hockey. If he does coach another game then the NHL should just close up shop
Why Bettman didn't step in last night and stop Quenneville from coaching a game just hours after Beach shared his gut-wrenching story is beyond me and should lead to Bettman being out of a job, too, but again, he'll likely stay employed because morals are apparently completely off the table in pro sports.
These three men - Goodell, Manfred, and Bettman - make it very hard to be a sports fan and the sooner they are pushed out of their fancy offices the better we will all be.
Unfortunately, that might be a while because at the end of the day these guys work for the owners, money is king, and therefore doing the right thing is rarely at the top of their to-do lists.
Which stinks.
Quick hits: NFL Week 8 picks against the spread... Westbrook's lame move at end of loss... Texans WR furious over trade... And more.
- Charles Curtis, Charles McDonald, and Prince Grimes are back with their NFL picks for this week, including a big game tonight between the Packers and Cardinals.
- Russell Westbrook was ejected in the final seconds of last night's Thunder-Lakers game after getting upset over something that he shouldn't have been upset about.
- Houston Texans WR Brandin Cooks was not happy at all to learn that the team traded Mark Ingram get traded to the Saints.
- Here's Jason Kirk's Week 9 college football watch grid.