It’s quite possible the NFL had nothing to do with the shelving of ESPN’s long-planned docuseries about Colin Kaepernick.
It’s also quite possible that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and unicorns exist.
When news broke that the NFL and ESPN were getting in bed together, with the league eventually owning 10% of the network, concerns immediately arose about the deal’s impact on ESPN’s journalistic independence. A media outlet being owned, even slightly, by an entity it covers. What could possibly go wrong!
Even NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s promise to ESPN employees that the league wouldn’t interfere with the network’s journalism wasn’t enough to satisfy concerns.
Why? Because the league has shown over and over again that it can’t be trusted.
Its long-standing denials that the game could cause traumatic brain injuries. Its bait-and-switch on health care for retirees. Its abysmal treatment of Black players. I could go on. The only constant in the NFL, besides Jerry Jones’ inability to see his shortcomings as a GM, is that the NFL is going to do what’s best for the NFL.
And a documentary on Colin Kaepernick would be the opposite of what’s best for the NFL.
The NFL has largely moved on from the firestorm that surrounded Kaepernick’s protests of racist policing of people of color. Kaepernick hasn’t been on an NFL roster in eight years, and the other players who were prominent in their support of him or active in the Players Coalition are no longer in the league.
The fans who claimed they’d never watch the NFL again because of the protests by Kaepernick and other players are, predictably, watching the NFL again. Donald Trump, who did as much as anyone to fan the fury over the player protests, has long since turned his attention to demonizing other protestors and people of color.
A Kaepernick documentary puts it all — the reasons for the protests, Kaepernick’s collusion lawsuit, Goodell’s 2020 apology to the former quarterback — back in the spotlight, and the NFL would prefer just about anything but that.
Especially given the merger with ESPN is expected to require approval from, among others, the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission.
Fear that Trump would put his thumb on the scale of a major merger cowed CBS into paying an eight-figure sum to settle a winnable lawsuit the President filed against the network. Canning a documentary probably seems like a pittance by comparison, a couple of days of unflattering stories preferable to another season of manufactured outrage.
‘ESPN, Colin Kaepernick and Spike Lee have collectively decided to no longer proceed with this project as a result of certain creative differences,’ ESPN said in a statement to Reuters, which broke the news Saturday that the documentary has been shelved.
OK. Sure.
‘The NFL played no role in this decision,’ NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told USA TODAY Sports.
OK. Sure. Again.
Merger aside, the NFL and ESPN have been here before. And by here, I mean having a “change of heart” about the network airing something that would make the NFL look bad.
Back in 2013, ESPN was collaborating with PBS’ Frontline on “League of Denial,” an investigation into how the NFL had handled the growing crisis of former players developing chronic traumatic encephalopathy and other trauma-related brain diseases. But on Aug. 22 of that year, PBS released a statement saying ESPN was no longer involved in the documentary.
“We don’t normally comment on investigative projects in progress, but we regret ESPN’s decision to end a collaboration that has spanned the last 15 months and is based on the work of ESPN reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru, as well as FRONTLINE’s own original journalism,” Frontline executives said.
Unsurprisingly, the NFL denied pressuring ESPN. A day after Frontline’s announcement, however, the New York Times reported that ESPN’s decision came after Goodell and then-NFL Network president Steve Bornstein had expressed their displeasure with “League of Denial” during a lunch with network executives.
The NFL succeeded in blackballing Kaepernick once. Why did anyone think it would be different this time around?
The NFL has a vested interest in avoiding stories that could tarnish its image and put any of its multibillion-dollar revenues at risk. ESPN has a vested interest in keeping the league happy — now more than ever.
If that means journalistic independence has to take a back seat every once in a while, so be it. When there’s money to be made and bills to pay, integrity is expendable.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.