Both Roger Goodell and Adam Silver have recently had to deal with public relations disasters. Former NBA owner Donald Sterling’s phone conversation with his then-“friend” V. Stiviano revealed him to be a racist. A particular hot button issue bothering Sterling was Stiviano having taken a photo with former Laker Magic Johnson and posting the photo on Instagram. Sterling was apparently outraged that she was “taking pictures with a minority” (never mind that Stiviano herself is a visible minority). This phone conversation was especially troubling given that the NBA is largely composed of African-American players. The NBA quickly acknowledged the existence of the phone conversation, and said that it would do a full investigation of the matter. Shortly thereafter, Silver announced that Sterling would be ousted as an owner and that he would be fined $2.5 million. The team Sterling owned, the L.A. Clippers, was eventually bought by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer for a purported $2 billion. Sterling sued the NBA, but thus far has been unsuccessful in preventing the sale.
As for Goodell? A tape was leaked by TMZ to the general public showing NFL player Ray Rice knocking out his wife (then-fiancée) Janay Rice in the elevator of a casino, and then dragging her unconscious body out of the elevator. The initial penalty by the league was to suspend Rice for two games. In response to public outrage over the lenient punishment, the NFL decided to suspend Rice indefinitely. Rice is, however, appealing this decision as he is alleging that he is being punished for the same incident twice, which is against league rules according to the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Further, it has also been revealed that the NFL had access to the tape months before the TMZ leak, despite assertions that this is not true. Goodell even went so far as to say that legally the league could not obtain the tape from the casino, which is not true and especially hard to believe given that the NFL is a massive, multi-billion dollar corporation with a powerful legal team at its disposal. Goodell revealed himself to be clueless with regards to PR matters and perhaps even worse, with regards to the CBA of his own league. Regardless of one’s view about whether or not the NFL should take disciplinary action of its own against its players for domestic assault, it is patently clear that Goodell severely mishandled the Rice situation and thus failed in an important respect as commissioner of a sports league: he failed to protect the league’s image. Silver did not make the same mistake, as he took swift and bold action.
But do not mistake Silver as a paragon of moral virtue. Sterling has had a long history with discrimination, and Silver was almost definitely aware of this. Yet, Silver only took action against Sterling when he was posing a threat to the league’s image and likely its profitability as well. For example, in February 2003, the Housing Rights Centre of Los Angeles filed a housing discrimination order against Sterling, where it was alleged that Sterling said that “black people smell and attract vermin”. The case was settled out of court, though the precise terms of the settlement are not known. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Sterling for using race as a factor in determining who could be a tenant in one of his apartment buildings, with Sterling agreeing to pay $2.7 million in fines. Sterling has also been involved in an employee discrimination suit with Elgin Baylor and sexual harassment suits as well. This was all public knowledge, but only the TMZ leak of the phone conversation became a PR problem for the league as it was more compelling news fodder than drawn out litigation and fines. Only when it became widely known that Sterling was racist did Silver ban him as an NBA owner for being a racist. Nevertheless, Silver’s job as commissioner is to protect the owners, the league’s image and the league’s profitability. He did just that by taking swift action and turned what could have been a PR nightmare into a PR boost. This is precisely what Goodell failed to do by giving Rice a mere two game ban, by being caught lying about having the tape of Ray Rice hitting his wife, and by being generally clueless. The Adrian Peterson child abuse situation has served to compound the NFL’s recent image problems, but much of that damage could have been mitigated by properly handling the Rice situation. Goodell has failed a critically important part of his job, to protect his owners and protect the league’s image. He’s still making the owners a lot of money, though.