Not to long ago I was listening to sports radio the whole 45 minute segment was talking about how ridiculous it was that even something as terrible as what Aaron Hernandez has supposedly done, does not even have the power or impact high enough to bring down the NFL. His argument was that Aaron Hernandez has supposedly killed one person maybe even three and the fact that a highly skilled player and a big name if you watch football or play fantasy football did not even seem to phase the fans. The host continued to ask fans if there was anything that could happen that would diminish the power that the NFL holds or that would cause for a major loss in fans. Here is my opinion on his thoughts.
First off, what Aaron Hernandez has been accused of is an absolutely horrible situation and I can only hope for justice to be brought and that the situation gets resolved as quickly as possible for the families. My heart truly is sensitive to the situation and I am following closely to see how things turn out for everyone involved. My prayers go out to the families.
Now in reply to how this one sports radio host felt about the situation I have some what I feel to be good answers as to why the NFL has almost no way of going down in any dramatic fashion. I feel like the biggest reason as to why the NFL will never go down, because of an instance like this, is because it was one player from one team. There are 1,696 players in the NFL and close to double that before all the pre-season cuts are made. There are also 31 other teams that Aaron Hernandez was not on, meaning there are 31 teams worth of fans that just get a boost to hating the New England Patriots a little more. The fact is Aaron Hernandez is just one player out of so many players and so many teams he does not represent the league, or even his team, as a whole, he is just one individual. The NFL is not responsible for the actions of an individual. It is impossible to control 1,696 people all the time, not to mention a good majority come from rough backgrounds so the odds increase from that as well, that some bad things are going to happen. Say one worker, not a CEO or head guy in the company, in one of your favorite brands gets caught for a horrible crime and is eventually proven guilty in court, that does not mean that every person is going to give up on the brand and the brand is going to go under. That's how I feel this situation relates the NFL is a brand and one of its employee's did a horrible thing, but that does not represent the NFL as a whole and the brand will continue to sell.
This brings me to my next point. People have and will always spend money on their teams merchandise and tickets, even for the bad teams. People are to invested into the programs financially and mentally to let the sport go. People have grown up on football and its the one sport that can fill (on average) 80,000 fans into 16 different stadiums every single weekend. The fan base for the NFL is so strong and so deep and is only expanding every year. People love the excitement and action that the NFL brings. Fans love being able to stick with a team and cheer them on every Sunday. Football is called America's sport for a reason and the people love it to much to let it go.
All this being said I do think that there are some things that could damage the NFL. One of those things is if the leaders of the NFL got caught with some horrific crime. I feel that if the people controlling and running the league got involved with some terrible incident it would be a big blow to the league. If it was just one leader, depending on how high they are, got caught for a crime i feel it falls under the same type of deal as the Aaron Hernandez deal, but I do think it would still cause a bigger blow, because it would seem the leadership would be corrupt.
Another big thing would be if the NFL got caught setting up games and that the NFL was just all a production. If the league came out to have everything set up so games turned out a certain way and the league controlled who won and things the league would go to waste. Of course this is just something that could bring the league to an end but I believe to be almost impossible in itself.
The National Football League is one of the strongest businesses in the entire world. They bring in billions of dollars every year and there is a reason for that, people love it. The fans are invested and adore the sport and the good times it brings, and the fact that one player did something so horrible is not going to change how they feel about the entire league as a whole. There are some drastic and extremely high improbable events that could happen to cause a lot of damage to the league, but I think the NFL is to strong a brand to be brought to its knees.
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