The pressure is on for big-name NFL advertisers, like CoverGirl cosmetics, to pull their ad dollars after the Ray Rice domestic abuse scandal. How has the news media contributed to the discussion? Should companies pull ads? Missouri School of Journalism professors Earnest Perry, Mike McKean and Amy Simons discuss the issue.
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After the NFL Players Association filed an appeal of Ray Rice's indefinite suspension from the Baltimore Ravens on Tuesday, it does not appear as though the NFL's PR problems will be over any time soon.
The league is dealing several issues of domestic abuse after the Minnesota Viking's Adrian Peterson was arrested on charges of child abuse last week and Jonathan Dwyer of the Arizona Cardinals was arrested Wednesday on charges of domestic abuse involving is wife and 18-month-old son.
Missouri School of Journalism Professor Earnest Perry said the NFL isn't the only brand under fire.
Now all of a sudden you're starting to see the boycotts or at least the call for boycotts and companies pulling back. So its going to continue to happen until there's some sort of a resolution to it, but I don't know when that's going to happen.
CoverGirl is just one of the companies that has been attackedfor their sponsorship of the NFL. But Professor Mike McKean said it's unlikely that any of these major companies will be pulling their support.
I think the NFL and the sponsors believe they can ride it out. Just look at the TV ratings for Sunday Night Football after the Ray Rice story came out: the ratings were up 8 percent from last year and overall the NFL's ratings are up in this first week since that video came out.
McKean said companies invest more than a billion dollars for their sponsorship of a team and it's unlikely that they will pull such a profitable investment.
There was one economist who was quoted as saying 'It's like an aircraft carrier hitting a mine. It blows a small hole in the side but the ships not going to sink and they can keep sailing while they do the repairs.' I think that is what the NFL thinks is going to happen.
