The U.S.’ beloved pigskin kicks off three days a week for roughly four months of the year to provide extra anxiety and excitement into our lives.
Fans come from near and far and even overseas to fill stadiums and cheer on their favorite players as they sprint, tackle and slide from end zone to end zone. If it seems like a game of fun, it’s because it is.
But, simmering under the surface, professional football displays shocking parallels to the power dynamic that fueled the system of slavery.
For starters, the NFL exists to entertain viewers and generate revenue, perpetuating the system of capitalism in the sports industry. Capitalism would not be possible without a power dynamic, as there must be a winner and a loser for the system to work as designed.
“It’s modern-day slavery, you know?” former running back Adrian Peterson said in a 2011 interview with Yahoo! Sports regarding the National Football League. “The players are getting robbed. The owners are making so much off us to begin with.”
America’s monetary obsession and greed fuels inequality throughout society to maximize profits — something that influenced slavery in this nation.
Athletes work their entire lives to earn the opportunity to show their abilities on the big screen. They will stop at nothing to get their chance, shedding blood, sweat and tears on the road to the NFL Combine.
Yet the Combine, which is sometimes referred to as “the underwear Olympics,” shares distressing similarities with a slave auction. The participants — primarily people of color — are observed and examined by scouts and general managers, who are primarily white, and those white scouts are then the ones determining who is the fastest and strongest, and who can bring in the most money.
Slave-buyers were also found to pay attention to little details, such as speed and hand size, as they sought to purchase the enslaved human that could get the most work done in the shortest amount of time. Nowadays, as back then, the purchaser attempts to evaluate the longevity of the prospect.
These vulnerable college athletes are dying for their chance to prove themselves to capitalists to make it on the big screen, which makes them highly susceptible to the league’s imbalanced power dynamic.
Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback who has become the face of the league’s activist movement, spoke of this in his docuseries, “Colin Black and White.” In the first episode he said:
“Coaches will tell you they are looking for warriors, killers, beasts. They want you to be an animal out there, and you want to give them that. What they don’t want you to understand, is they’re establishing a power dynamic. Before they put you on the field, teams poke, prod and examine you… No boundary respected, no dignity left intact.”
Athletes are usually willing to put their bodies through the wringer to make it to the pros, even if this process equates to unfair or unorthodox treatment.
This process can also exemplify how athletes can be influenced subconsciously to be submissive to the power figure. They work hard to achieve a personal goal, but then coaches and trainers break their spirits like horses, trained to compete for the teams’ benefit — nothing more, nothing less.
They are poked and prodded — physically, sure, but also mentally — through a series of challenging tests and interviews.
According to The Guardian, some of the bizarre interviews consist of the following questions:
“Do you like men?”
“Is your mother a prostitute?”
“What is your murder weapon of choice?”
It is that power imbalance between the prospect and coach that is so startling here, and the fact that many of these questions appear to be racially motivated. The athletes know that this authoritative figure is what stands between them and their dream, which influences them to give answers they believe the figure will deem “acceptable.”
And sure, teams have a responsibility to ensure that their new players are reliable. But there are things that cross the line.
This clearly crosses the line.
Speakers at the Combine are often found describing the prospect’s physical ability ad nauseum, whether it be his hand size or his time in the 40-yard dash. Scouts need to know their players’ abilities, sure, but all of their highlight tapes are already accessible online, making the Combine almost unnecessary.
Similar to how those enslaved were sold in open markets for the public to see, the NFL Combine is streamed so anyone who desires can tune in.
The contracts professional athletes sign are comparable to slave contracts, as they bind a player to a specific organization for a given period of time, and if these contracts are broken, the player can be fined or removed from the team. Slave contracts aimed to keep slaves in a subordinate position while working on plantations, while players’ contracts aim to keep players in a subordinate position while on the field.
Players being traded and sent to other teams is slightly akin to how slaves were sold and then sent to another master. In both scenarios, money talks.
However, the “owners,” whether it be the slave owner or team owner, go for whichever contract will benefit them most, not the human being they are trading. This disconnect harms the athletes and highlights the power imbalance by establishing dominance and a hint of narcissism.
Let’s not forget how we refer to the people with money and decision-making power: owners. Just that title in itself is wrong for many reasons, and the NFL should follow the NBA’s lead — replacing the term “owners” with “governors” — to replace the name with something more appropriate.
And, let’s stop claiming that just because these athletes have money, or are on their way to money, that their claims of mistreatment are baseless.
Kayla Sterner is an assistant sports editor and can be reached at kayla.sterner@ubspectrum.com
Kayla Sterner is an assistant sports editor at The Spectrum. She is studying communications with the hopes of being a sideline reporter. In her spare time, she can be found in the gym, watching football or vibing to Mac Miller. Kayla is on Twitter @kaylasterner.
