The panel “League vs Player: The battle off the field” features Andrew Brandt, Gabe Feldman, Scott Fujita and Kelli Masters. Together they discussed the many off-field controversies that have led to battles between professional sports leagues and their players, pertaining to violence, scandals and even drugs. What is League vs. Player? Well they covered two main areas that have been in the news recently. The first point.
1. In 2014, season the New England Patriots and Seahawks were in the Superbowl, that Superbowl was the most watched ever. That same season AP did a survey on the biggest story in sports that year. What they announced in 2014 is that the biggest story in NFL was domestic violence. So they touched on Ray Rice and the violence case that recently occurred.
The second point.
2. The Tom Brady was suspended four games in the NFL for being involved with the deflate-gate issue. Nobody ‘really’ knows what happened in the room with the football, so we have to take what we get in terms of information.
Scott Fujita mentioned that the highest profile player, Tom Brady, is in a lengthy litigation. The attorneys of the case came to conclude that Tom knew of what was going on. Such an inconsequential as deflating footballs has become a federal case.
“There is an ongoing battle over control and interpretation. Who controls what?,” Scott said.
Essentially players should have some sort of common sense of the rules they are given and the code of conduct they should have as part of the team. Scott discusses that as a former NFL player, attorneys have a way of interpreting and manipulating a scenario in order to protect their clients and themselves.
“When it comes to being an agent, it is important to educated the player on your responsibilities they have on what they can and cannot do,” Kelli said.
The NFL is the leading league with negative scenarios on violence and illegal issues. So with that being said, Brandt mentioned that since 2006-2007 the team’s perspective has changed.
“From the team perspective we know we can discipline the players ourselves,” Brandt said.
As these issues are arising it is important to understand what to do for those players and help them in an effective and positive way. Preparing to deal with the issue is very important for not only the brand of the player but the league and team as well. Violence has become a social issue something that is negative and not wanted. However, does the league just want players to get the job done or should they be involved in their personal lives? People look up to these players; what they do and how they present themselves. With that being said, the personal lives of your players should be private until it starts effecting their performance on the field and their image.