The start of the NFL season is the unofficial end of summer, at least for sports fans. And what a summer it was for the world of sports; one that saw one of the biggest stars in the most popular sports league undergo a meteoric fall from grace, while a referee admitted to gambling on games he officiated, all while one of the most recognized records in sports was broken by a player alleged to have used steroids. And while the tales of Michael Vick, Tim Donaghy and Barry Bonds were the most covered in the past three months, the scandals do not stop there.
There was the fall of the Tour de France, which was pronounced dead by several newspapers. There was another gambling scandal, this time in tennis, involving U.S. Open semifinalist Nikolay Davydenko. On the positive side, there was the trade of Kevin Garnett to the Boston Celtics and the debut of David Beckham in Major League Soccer, though those stories were only good for a few momentary rays of hope during an otherwise dark time in sports.
So, hours before the sports world gets a necessary jolt of enthusiasm, with the kickoff of the NFL season, here is one final goodbye to a scandal-plagued summer that will never quite be forgotten.
Goodbye, Michael Vick.
No matter what one thinks about the lynch-mob reaction to the Michael Vick dogfighting scandal, and no matter what one thinks about the fact that Vick’s actions became a referendum on black America, there is no question that Vick as an individual put himself in the position to incur the greatest fall of any athlete since O.J. Simpson was accused of murder thirteen years ago.
For several months, rumors about Vick’s involvement in a dogfighting ring on his property circulated, barely under the radar. During the summer, the story came to a head. After early reports that he would not be indicted in a federal dogfighting probe, Vick was in fact indicted on July 17. The activities detailed in the indictment included violent methods of killing the losing dogs.
The details of his alleged actions made Vick an instant pariah nationally, as dog lovers throughout the country united to not just condemn Vick, but in some cases, to call for his execution by hanging. The case quickly degenerated into a racial debate, as expert sociologists such as Mike Celizic, Jason Whitlock and Jemele Hill censured African Americans who were perceived as defending Vick, and the ‘sport’ of dogfighting became tied, in the eyes of the media, almost exclusively to hip-hop culture.
In August, Vick pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to operate an interstate dogfighting ring, and now faces the potential of jail time. He will be sentenced in December. In response to his plea agreement, the NFL suspended him indefinitely.
Goodbye, Tim Donaghy.
Michael Vick’s indictment was wiped off the sports pages on July 20, when the NBA suffered a stomach punch that it may not fully recover from. On that Friday morning, the New York Post reported that an unidentified NBA referee was under investigation for gambling, including gambling on games he officiated. Later that afternoon, the referee was identified as thirteen year veteran Tim Donaghy.
The news became fodder for conspiracy theorists, many of whom had suspected before that NBA referees had agendas against their teams, and was a devastating blow to a league coming off an NBA Finals that was both a ratings disaster and an uninspiring sweep.
In the days following the revelation of Donaghy’s misdeeds, NBA Commissioner David Stern held a somber news conference in which he categorized Donaghy as a “rogue, isolated criminal”. Since that point, Donaghy has allegedly said he would identify twenty other NBA referees who gambled. Some outlets erroneously reported that the twenty referees Donaghy would finger had bet on games; that is not true, as reports indicate that most of the activity Donaghy is set to expose is not criminal.
Commissioner Stern has stated that he is leery of taking Donaghy at face value, and that he trusts his referees. Stern had some sharp words for former NBA referees Hue Hollins and Mike Mathis, both of whom have been very critical of league refereeing practices, saying “Mathis and Hollins at the end of their careers were not model referees.”
Despite the Donaghy scandal, the NBA is having its best offseason of season-ticket renewals since 2000-01.
Goodbye, Barry Bonds.
For a very brief period this summer, baseball managed to steal the headlines. Mere days after the Vick indictment and the Donaghy revelation, Barry Bonds hit his 756th career home run in a home game against the Washington Nationals. The home run set the all time Major League Baseball record, as Bonds surpassed previous record-holder Hank Aaron.
His achievement was met with much scorn, from sportswriters and sports fans alike. Tabloids such as the New York Post and New York Daily News had no problems foregoing any pretense of objectivity. NBC personality Bob Costas made it his personal mission to show up on as many television shows as he possibly could to criticize Bonds, ranging from ESPN morning show Mike and Mike in the Morning to CNN’s The Situation Room.
Like the Vick story, the Bonds story became racial; MSNBC.com ran a featured headline saying “Blacks shouldn’t blindly applaud drug cheat like Bonds“.
Unlike Vick or Donaghy, Bonds’ story did not end with his banishment from his sport. This week, he hit his 762nd home run.
Goodbye, summer.
Though it may not have seemed that way during the summer, and though it may not seem that way now, the scandals that have plagued the Big Three American sports are not fatal.
Certainly, the Tim Donaghy scandal is the most severe of all three, as it affects the integrity of the game (and by the same token, the startlingly unreported Davydenko story is just as dangerous). However, the NBA is doing very well this offseason from a business perspective. It remains to be seen what effect Donaghy will have on casual fans; the 2007 NBA Finals already showed that the league is having trouble attracting fans who do not have a vested interest in the game. Should casual fans start tuning out en masse, the NBA could be in for several more years of 6.2 average ratings for its championship event.
The Michael Vick scandal could spell the end of his NFL career, one that began as one of the most spectacular in recent history. However, there is a possibility that Vick could return to the league as soon as 2010, after a potential jail term, and after a league suspension. No matter what happens the rest of his career, there is no comeback in the future of Vick. Unlike Ray Lewis or Kobe Bryant, Vick will likely go to prison, and no amount of public rehabilitation will make him tolerable to Madison Avenue. For the NFL, though the Vick case is merely the culmination of an offseason of image woes that would doom a sport such as the NBA, the league as a property is strong enough to withstand this and any other individual player issue.
The Barry Bonds scandal is the least malignant of the three. Bonds is still playing, and he is just one of what appears to be several Major League Baseball players who have used steroids in the past two decades. While Bonds may be despised in some corners, the fact that he is not alone in his indiscretions, and the fact that rumors about his steroid use have been rampant since 2003, makes the reaction to his scandal less visceral than the reaction to the Vick dogfighting case or the Donaghy gambling scandal. Major League Baseball has not seen any ill effects on business due to its ongoing steroids scandal, and one imagines Bonds’ home run record will also have little effect on the business of the league.
Overall, the summer of 2007 will never be forgotten by sports fans, simply for the cataclysmic grouping of events. The NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball will certainly survive the events of this summer, though each league was the unwilling recipient of a nasty scare that brought unwanted mainstream attention and scrutiny.
