The NFL's Horrible Handling of Ray Rice

Both the Ravens, and the NFL could not have put on a better clinic and how to go about handling a crisis the wrong way. The NFL, and most importantly Roger Goodell, handled this disgusting situation terribly. In fact, it is amazing how badly the situation was handled when one considers the strength and reach of the parties involved, and how it could have been different if either side could be bothered to do some digging. Arguably, this crisis could have been labeled as "smoldering" according to the Institute for Crisis Management as covered in Digital Strategies for Powerful Corporate Communications. There was video of the aftermath that spread throughout social media of Rice dragging his unconscious fiancé out of an elevator a few days after the arrest. With some persistence as well as some actual detective work, this crisis may not have elevated to the levels that it did months later. Personally, I didn't think it could get any worse, but it did. As the cliché goes, the cover-up is always worse than the crime.

Even though this travesty took place months ago, it's very difficult for me to decide just which part of this entire saga is worse. I still can't figure out who the genius was that it would be a good idea to have a press conference with Ray and Janay at arm’s length from each other in front of reporters. It got worse from there when he was grinning and offering an apology to his owners and fans, and not his wife. "Everyone was affected by the situation that me and my wife was in." No, Ray. No. You put your wife in that situation, you are the one to blame. And any analogies using getting knocked down before you get back up is just terrible. I know I watch too much TV, but what it had been a terrible idea to have an interview at his house with her using whoever the NFL Network chose to ask both of them questions?

The most baffling part of the press conference was having Janay Rice their twisting in the wind. It was awful. She was the victim and yet she had very little say in the press conference. And while I don't understand why she had to say "the role I played," she came off better than he did after 5 min. of stumbling through a whimsical soliloquy. She looked like she was on the verge of tears the entire time, and if I didn't feel bad enough for her after seeing the video, I felt worse for her after this press conference. It all felt so contrived, so fake, just horribly put together by their PR higher ups.

I didn't want to see the video that was released months later from inside the elevator. I didn't want anybody else to see it either. In the age of Vine and .gifs, it wouldn’t be something that went away anytime soon. Yet the worst part about it is, that Ray Rice told the owners as well as Roger Goodell won't happen in the elevator months before the video was released. Even with a confession, Rice only got a two-game suspension. It was a terrible situation handled awfully by everybody involved. Sure, the ravens did their fans a solid by having a Ray Rice jersey exchange, but after all that happened, it wasn't enough. Unfortunately, this is a league where talent trumps the law. Those Rice jerseys will be printed for another team as soon as he's reinstated. And as soon as he's reinstated, Rice jerseys will be sold once again.

Roger Goodell should not have resigned after this travesty. The owners of the NFL teams should have had him removed by voting him out. But since these owners make hundreds of millions of dollars of this game thanks to him, that was not going to happen. Once these owners made it known his job was safe, there was no chance he was going to step down despite it being the right thing to do. He is a hypocrite. He runs the league like dictator, and the only people he answers to are the owners and the sponsors that line his coffers. He is the law. He is the judge and jury. And his ideology is extremely flawed. Everything from his handling of the lawsuits from formerplayers, pulling the plug on the findings of the concussion study, the paltry donation from profits of breast cancer awareness apparel, to the lack of uniformity forpunishments with his players, he is a terrible leader who needs to be removed.

The Sports Gag

NBCSN's Online Presence

Since NBCSN is the channel strictly dedicated to airing only sports, it doesn’t technically have its own website. It does have a Twitter feed and a Pinterest page of its own, but the website you’re directed to from the aforementioned social media platforms links you to the NBC Sports website. It’s slightly different when it comes to trying to find the NBCSN Facebook page. Yes, the Facebook page does exist, but it is simply a Wikipedia history about NBCSN. Facebook, however, will suggest you look at the NBC Sports page which will tell you all about the programming being shown on NBCSN.

The NBC Sports website is very simplistic with no-frills and no clutter. There’s a section for the headlines across all sports, and then every sport has it’s own section with its own headlines. You can tell which sports they have a vested interest in due to the way it’s placed on the site with a larger font and more detail than just the headline. The website is a very good reflection of NBCSN because it does not go out of its way to overly promote its own interests with regards to the programming that they own the rights to. It’s not like other websites that assault your eyes and ears with constant advertising of what they’re showing every time you click a different link on the site. The NBC Sports site contains mostly original content provided by their reporters, but just like many other news sites NBC Sports also uses content from the Associated Press to cover smaller stories.

There isn’t a lot that NBCSN does to get its viewers involved in their social media accounts. On the website you are allowed to comment on the stories that are posted, but they use Twitter and Facebook as a way to share headlines and new stories as they happen. They also advertise the programs that will be coming up on the TV channel with hashtags to use it if you are watching and tweeting with other viewers. The programming that NBCSN has all have their own social media accounts which are far more interactive than the main NBC Sports Facebook and Twitter accounts. Overall, the main social media sites are very similar to the NBC Sports website in that they only share news and schedules. It’s not until you get to the network programs social media accounts that you get to interact with things like polls to vote on, or viewer email bags.

NBC Sports Facebook banner

I think that NBCSN and NBC Sports are doing the right thing in that the main job on their main website and social media accounts are to deliver the news and the facts about what they are reporting on and covering.  Frank Rose told us that it was very important how you tell a story and the different ways you can garner the attention through social media. The examples he used for The Dark Knight and Mad Men were both creative and entertaining, but I don’t think they can apply here with NBCSN. When it comes to people seeking out news about sports it’s not that much different from when people seek out political news; they just want the facts. I think that NBCSN does a very good job in doing this throughout their various websites.

So how does NBCSN encourage their visitors to get involved with the different social media platforms and their programming? Well, the majority of their programs have their own Twitter account or Facebook page. So the NBCSN Twitter feed will send out a tweet or retweet that looks like this:

@NBCSN

Then the viewer can go check out that program’s Twitter feed where they can interact with other viewers as well as the people running that particular program’s Twitter account. The NBC Sports website may not be very glamorous, or look like much fun, but they’re trying to be taken seriously, and I believe they’re doing a good job. The entertaining and interactive parts of social media come from the network’s programming accounts and the people that run those accounts.

The UAT Filter and NBCSN

It’s pretty difficult to separate yourself in your sports coverage on a day-to-day basis. Sure, you’re all going to cover the same major stories, but you can certainly cover the story from a different angle. In the case of NBCSN, you cover the story with very little bias due to a possible conflict of interest that you have coverage contracts with. NBCSN also it exhibits its uniqueness by not having a daily sports highlight show. The ‘Lights was their daily sports highlight show, but unfortunately it was canceled. This is a shame because it was very simple and very effective. It was 30 minutes of highlights with no editorializing and no filler. NBCSN gets most of its talkability through its football coverage as well as its coverage of the British Premier League. They’re able to do this due to the authenticity in the anchors and talent they have covering these particular subjects. Dan Patrick and Mike Florio have years of coverage in the NFL, and they also have many reputable reporters that they stay in close touch with from Sports Illustrated. This may not seem important to most, but having print media back you up on TV Is very important to older demographics. It’s also important because Sports Illustrated is a salient brand which in turn amps up its authenticity.

Unfortunately what makes NBCSN different from other sports networks is what makes it better to me. NBCSN doesn’t have contracts to all of the major sports in this country. However, what they cover they cover well. They’re not the type of company to constantly retweet their own reporters when news is breaking, and take credit for the news as if they broke it themselves. They do, however, give credit to the reporters that break these stories, even if these reporters work for their main competition. This is a very important detail because it speaks to journalistic integrity. The type of integrity is important to me because I would never want anybody to take credit for my work just because the network the person taking credit for it works for another network that can essentially ”shout” it louder than my own network. The salient aspect of NBCSN comes from its history in sports coverage as well as its inclusion of Sports Illustrated reporters across their platforms.

Ultimately, NBCSN does a good job sticking to its mission of covering International sports as best as it can. Its weakness right now is that it doesn’t have the deep pockets that their competitors have. Another issue that they have is that the events that they bid to cover, they overbid by quite a bit. More fiscal responsibility coupled with the already great talent that they have would allow them to expand the brand to new viewers which would mean more money for the company.

The NBCSN Brand

You would be hard-pressed to find anybody who would dispute ESPN's self-proclaimed declaration of being "The Worldwide Leader in Sports." In fact, this is a very simple thing to claim when you have the resources, and as a result, the access ESPN has across the major sports leagues. In a perfect world ESPN would be my one stop shopping for all of my sports information needs, but that has not been the case for me for the past 3 to 4 years. I can't put my finger on exactly what it was that made me greatly reduce my viewing of ESPN programs, but whenever I think of ESPN I think of TimTebow, Lebron James, and Skip Bayless, and it shouldn't be like that.

I started paying more attention to the NBC Sports Network (NBCSN) because of my daily habit of watching sports radio talk shows on TV. My day started out with Boomer and Carton, followed by Dan Patrick, then Mike Francesca, or Scott Van Pelt and Ryen Russillo, depending on if the latter two were being broadcast on a cable channel I subscribe to. As I was assigned more work in both my job and at school, I didn't have as much time to tune into all of these, so I stuck with “The Dan Patrick Show” as the one I wouldn't miss. This meant spending a lot of time watching NBCSN, and sticking with the programming they provided because it was a nice change of pace from all the other shows that seem to pride themselves on yelling at each other as well as their viewers/listeners.

NBC Sports has always been a Goliath with its coverage of the Olympics, the NBA on NBC, and its coverage of the NHL when nobody else wanted to cover it. It wasn't until recently that NBCSN came to be, and the way it came to be was through a rebrand. Before it was NBCSN, it was the Outdoor Life Network, followed by Versus, and they were both a part of a division of NBC Sports. Once Comcast came in via a merger, all of the sports associated with NBC would have some type of program on NBCSN.

NBCSN’s parent company NBCUniversal says this about itself on the company's website. "NBCUniversal is one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news and information to a global audience." While ESPN claims to be "The Worldwide Leaders In Sports," NBCSN is the network that seems to have far more coverage of sports taking place around the world. This network covers the British Premier League, the Tour de France, Formula One Racing, and the Olympics, and that's just a few of the major international sporting events they have listed. It's safe to say that even though it's a small part of NBCUniversal, they are definitely following through on what the company expects.

I chose NBCSN as my brand because I like the chances they take with their programming because it comes across as authentic, and because I am a big fan of most of the personalities and talents that they employ.  Rohit Bhargava wrote about the ways to be authentic in Personality Not Included, and one of the major ideas behind this is to "Foster Individuals Instead of People." It's easy to turn on any sports network and find company "yes men" who are a dime a dozen. I know that NBCSN is not perceived as a threat to overtake ESPN, but that's why I am drawn to it. I'd much rather watch programming that allows individuals to put on something that will separate themselves from everybody else. I don't want to be yelled at, I don't want to feel there's an agenda behind why a certain player or team is over covered, I just want to be told what happened and I want to be entertained. Here is a perfect example of individuality on NBCSN. I close with a link to a video clip from Men In Blazers, a TV show that I have an immense amount of respect for because of how unique it is. It's a small part of why I chose to cover NBCSN.

Men in Blazers with Dominic West