Throughout the Monday edition of Morning Joe, co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski called on the sponsors of the NFL to boycott the league, suggesting that they were the enablers of pro-football's weak domestic-violence policy. They even went as far as reading off a list of NFL sponsors. When N.Y. Times sports reporter Alan Schwarz suggested that the hosts start with themselves by going to NBC management and telling them to stop running Sunday Night Football, the hosts became indignant, asserting, "We're talking about sponsors."
Brzezinski: Here with us now, Alan Schwarz, correspondent for the "New York Times." And he writes in part this, "During his eight years as NFL commissioner Goodell has deflected many crises that threatened the league's integrity and public image from player misconduct to team misconduct. He has survived them all largely because team owners are pleased with the league's soaring revenues under Goodell’s stewardship. Their calculation is that the profits are worth any setbacks that result from a crisis-management style that has been called everything from clumsy to last week, conspiratorial." So I guess, Alan, what is the missing component here, you got team owners they’re responsible, the NFL they’re responsible, and then what about sponsors?
Schwarz: Well, I mean sponsors are going to make their decisions based on the same calculus the NFL does. I mean, sure, then again the building we're sitting in right now, I mean should we all march up into Ted Harbert [the Chairman of NBC] office and say we won't participate any broadcasting associated with NBC because NBC broadcasts Sunday Night Football? I mean, you know, the transitive property of protest has its limits and I think we need to certainly expect the NFL to present better explanations for why it does things the way it does but in terms of the sponsors and demanding something of the sponsors, if we do that, we must demand the same from ourselves.
Schwarz's comment was a suggestion that before it goes after others, NBC should stop paying the NFL the $1.05 billion dollars per year for the right to broadcast Sunday Night Football. Protecting his network. Scarborough got sarcastic.
Scarborough: Ouch. T.J. [director of Morning Joe] Could you have Ted Harbert off his camera. Come on. We got owners --
Brzezinski: Happy to do that.
Scarborough: We can march out en masse.
Brzezinski: I don't pay millions of dollars to promote the game.
Schwarz: Should NBC not benefit the NFL and say we're not going broadcast the game next Sunday?
Brzezinski: Maybe. I'm asking you about sponsors. If you think sponsors have a role since money is what your very first theme here, is that money is driving this. How do you stop this sort of like hemorrhaging of domestic abuse cases not being handled well if sponsors don't get involved?
Schwarz: Look, it's not for me to say that sponsors should boycott the NFL. That's not my role. It's yours and that's great. My job is to discuss perhaps more of the overarching issues and discuss what the choices are. What people choose to do.
Scarborough: What are the choices then?
Schwarz: The choices are sponsors can say we're not going participate in the NFL any more because or temporarily because we feel as if they have done things societally disturb us.
Scarborough: Have you heard of any sponsors that have done that yet?
Schwarz: And I think that the sponsors act the same way that the NFL does. They believe -- I’m not saying it's correct but they believe that this will blow over just like Michael Vick’s dogfighting ring, just like Ray Lewis when there were grave concerns about what happen that night.
Scarborough: Right.
Schwarz: Excuse me?
Clearly agitated at the suggestion of hypocrisy, Scarborough responded:
Scarborough: I said right. It means I’m agreeing with you. You don't have get defensive. You can relax.
Schwarz: I didn't hear you.
Scarborough: I said right.
