I don’t think that someone who commits such cruel acts, should be in the public eye for children to see and emulate, myself. If they are in the public eye, it should be from a “You see this? This is what happens when you commit illegal and immoral acts, don’t be like him.” stance. Yes, he has a right to earn a living somehow, but no, he shouldn’t be held up and admired. I think that the “rot” goes pretty deeply in people who commit such crimes, and I am not surprised to read of murderers who started out being cruel to animals, perhaps even dog or cock fighting. I don’t think such people, who have a cruel streak of that nature, can “go straight” without wanting to, and without a lot of work and time.
ETA: Yeah there was a saint who started out cruelly killing animals, and I think he even wrote a paper about the joys of doing so. That’s an exception. Many don’t turn their lives around after allowing such “spiritual rot” in, IMO.
I would fully support the NFL saying they didn’t want him. But if they did want him? Well, I don’t watch football. If it mattered to people, they would have to stop watching football to get their points across.
I think there’s a little more to it than that. The entire dogfighting operation described in the indictment was possible only because of Vick’s job - none of the other three indicted men is even employed. Vick purchased the house and paid for the renovations that they made to it. Vick footed the bill for the dogs they bought. Vick supplied the purses for their fights. If Vick weren’t in the NFL, the same four guys might still have a dogfighting operation, it’s true. But without Vick’s millions of dollars, they’d probably have one pit bull and be fighting for $100 purses. Still despicable and cruel, but nowhere near the scale that the indictment describes.
Jamal Lewis was in no condition to play football after four months in prison. I can’t imagine Vick getting back into the game after a year or more. He’s got a rocket arm, but he doesn’t throw too accurately and makes bad decisions. His best skills are his speed and agility, and I doubt he’ll have the nutrition, equipment, or motivation to keep those at a high level if he’s incarcerated.
aren’t NFL players among the lowest paid professional athletes among the big three (MLB and NBA). What about compared to PGA (they can’t approach Woods or Mickelson, but say a Cabrera or even a DiMarco) or Nextel Cup?
Yes, NFL players have the lowest average salary. The average salary in the NBA is $3.7 million, the average MLB salary is $2.7 million, and the average NFL salary is $1.4 million.
But consider that there are 16 players on an NBA team, 25 on a MLB team, and 55 on an NFL team. The total spending for each league is reversed - and NFL team of average salaries would be $77 million, an MLB team would $67.5 million, and an NBA team $59.2 million. The NFL and the NFLPA have compromised on a sustainable business model that isn’t seen in the other sports.
This is probably a discussion for another thread. If you’re interested enough to start one, I’ll jump in.
Woods’ PGA earnings for 2004 - ‘06 averaged around $10 million/year. It’s hard to compare NFL players’ salaries to other athletes, because of the signing bonuses and backloaded contracts, but a few players sign contracts with 8-figure signing bonuses every season. This year, for example, defensive end Charles Grant got $20 million in guarantees on a 7 year contract (that likely won’t go more than 3-4 years) from New Orleans. Linebacker Adalius Thomas signed a similar contract with New England, and those are just two off the top of my head.
The sport’s biggest names (the NFL equivalent of Tiger Woods) will take home at least as much from sports earnings. Peyton Manning got a $10,000,000 roster bonus (converted to signing bonus for cap purposes) this February. Thats on top of his regular season salary. He’s easily matching Woods in his pay from the sport.
Endorsements are a different story. Manning’s probably making as much as anybody in the league from endorsements, but I doubt he can touch Woods’ income from that.
Should losing his job be part of the legal penalties for what Vick did (if he is in fact guilty)? No, of course not, and it won’t be.
But I would fully support the NFL not letting him come back to football. Why? The NFL is a business that makes its money by entertaining people. There is often the argument that teams/NFL should only be concerned with how well someone performs on the field.
It is undoubtedly true that on-field performance is of paramount importance. In general, fans like a team that wins, teams win with good players. So having good players is good, it makes the games more entertaining for the fans. Some exceptionally gifted players can generate fan interest even if the team itself is weak.
Ultimately though, it isn’t pure athletic ability that determines the enormous salaries athletes make. They only make those enormous salaries because there are fans in the seats and at home buying merchandise and watching the games on TV. Some of the best athletes in the world do not make a lot of money from being great athletes. Kurt Angle was a great amateur wrestler and won a gold medal, he ended up going into professional wrestling (which is a scripted form of entertainment, not a sport.) Why? Money. There’s no money in amateur greco-roman style wrestling. The world’s best pole vaulter probably isn’t bringing in serious bank either, neither is the world’s best high jumper or the world’s best shot-put thrower.
To remain successful financially a sport has to remain entertaining to the fans. History has shown that terrible behavior on behalf of the athletes can be a turnoff to the fans. When the baseball players went on strike, America was very unhappy. This was America’s Pastime for god’s sake! These guys were making millions and went on strike because that wasn’t enough. The average Joe Fan who works at a lumber mill is not going to be sympathetic to their plight, that turned people off baseball BIG TIME and it took years for baseball to recover fully. NFL realizes no small part of its revenue comes from parents who buy their kids jerseys, take them to games, buy them the NFL video games and et cetera. They realize that parents don’t, in general, want their kids to become criminals, and parents will become wary of their kids getting into NFL merchandise if the NFL becomes synonymous with gangsters and hoodlums.
Because you need them in order to research Republic.
FTR, I find this story pretty abhorrent. And I agree that it’s not looking good for Mr. Ron “Ookie” Mexico.
Dog fighting is a form of illegal gambling, as well as exceedingly cruel to animals.
ETA: Remember there is not only a “purse” that goes to the owner of the winning dog, but people make bets on the dogs as well. The host of the event gets a portion of the bets too, often.
I cannot begin to imagine how anyone can do any of these things to a dog or any other animal. This is so far beyond acceptable behavior that the public has every right to not contribute to him financially, whether it be by whatever portion of ticket sales go to him or products that we buy that give him endorsement fees. He should never play a down again and all contracts with him should be voided.
Dog fighting is a form of illegal sport. The money is from gambling, but even if people were doing it with no money involved it would still be illegal.
I honestly have a tough time believing that the calls that he should lose his job in this thread would be there if he were accused of putting illegal bets on the ponies.
You will notice that nobody issues these calls when the person is making $9 an hour. They issue such calls when the person has a particularly prestigious and/or high-paying job, which they rightly regard as a privilege, not a right.
Legal guilt is not the same as actual guilt, and even if Valtrex-boy beats the rap, a lot of people will likely still think he’s guilty in actual fact. We expect that the Falcons and the NFL will know it damn well also, and we expect them to stop extending the privilege of wealth and fame. He has the right to go on making a living, but he does not have the right to hold a job that depends on the esteem and goodwill of the populace.
If he were involved in the breeding and training of the horses, and executed losers in the most vicious way possible, you bet I would call for the NFL to drop him. Same if it were greyhounds.
It was his cousin (no idea if it’s first, second, twice -removed) Davon Boddie who was initially arrested for marijuana possesion and intent to distribute at the end of April. When the police went to the house (Boddie listed it as his residence when he was arrested), they found evidence of dogfighting.
Would you also call for him to lose his job if he, for example, lied to police in order to hinder the investigation of the death of a human being?
I don’t think the NFL will need to suspend him if he is convicted and does jail time. Apart from the negative effect of incarceration on his ability to play, he would become a PR nightmare for any team, and most NFL teams tend to be very image conscious. He just isn’t good enough as a quarterback to be worth the hassle if he gets sent down for this.
