Chris Borland’s stunning decision to not play football after one year in the NFL has trumped Jameis Winston’s decision to not show up for the draft. Albeit very different circumstances, both create potential problems for the league.
In 2015, the NFL will take the draft on the road, swapping a certain Roger Goodell boo-fest in New York City for a likely Roger Goodell boo-fest in Chicago. But the road show suddenly has less sizzle, given the news that the likely first overall pick in the draft will be staying home.
The league’s reaction to the decision can best be summarized in this tweet from NFL Media employee Albert Breer: “League obviously wants all the top guys in Chicago. But @NFLprguy says ultimately, ‘It’s up to the individual player if he wants to go.’”
The logic is undeniable. With the NFL now treating the draft like the Super Bowl and shopping it to the highest bidder, the city submitting the highest bid will want the biggest names to attend. Which means the NFL will want them to attend.
But the NFL can’t make them attend. The NFL can offer free travel and lodging and air time on ESPN and NFLN, but the league can’t yet mandate that they show up because they’re not yet employees and even if they were this isn’t an actual game.
That’s where the league’s logic leads to an undeniable conclusion. If the NFL will be taking the draft on the road and relying on enough highly-regarded draft-eligible players to show up at the draft in order to make it something other than the Commissioner surrounded by a bunch of guys in suits on a fancy stage, maybe the NFL should offer the highly-regarded draft-eligible players compensation for their participation in the annual late April/early May episode of the ultimate American reality show.
Surely, everybody else who’s there to present the draft is getting paid to do it. So why aren’t the stars of the show getting paid, too?
They haven’t been paid yet because the NFL has been able to sell attendance at the draft as an honor for the player, not as a service to the league. So whenever a player decides to pass on the honor, the NFL shrugs, confident that enough other players will have the sense to accept an invitation to work without getting paid.
At a time when more and more people are waking up to the reality that college football players are being exploited, receiving far less for their efforts and sacrifices than they generate in revenue for the NCAA machine, maybe the time has come for highly-regarded draft-eligible players to wake up to the fact that this supposed honor has greater value to the NFL than it does to the players. If none of them show up, the draft will still generate plenty of interest on TV. But who will want to actually attend it, and what city would ever want to host it?
This doesn’t mean highly-regarded draft-eligible players should refuse to attend the draft. But they should realize that the NFL has a strong financial interest in their collective decision to be there. Shouldn’t the highly-regarded draft-eligible players share in the revenues that their presence helps to generate?