The Kansas City Chiefs have never allowed their long-suffering fan base to celebrate a Super Bowl appearance, let alone championship. This season they’re a very real Super Bowl contender this season — and yet, they released one of their top players on Friday: running back Kareem Hunt.
Never mind that the second-year player was a Pro Bowl selection in his rookie season and on-pace to rush for well more than 1,000 yards this season. Hunt was cut after TMZ leaked a video of him striking a woman in a hotel back in February. When the video became public, he was placed on the NFL commissioner’s exempt list — and the Chiefs then released him.
Despite his release, it seems the Chiefs and the NFL mishandled the situation. The Chiefs knew about the incident since around the time it occurred and did nothing about it. The film existed and neither the NFL nor the Chiefs spoke with Hunt or his accuser about it. Had they done as much, they could have sorted the situation out in the offseason and let due process play out. Controversy aside, it seems like the Chiefs made the right move here, even if it took them too long to cut Hunt, because sports leagues should absolutely have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to domestic violence.
Sports are supposed to be enjoyable to watch and take people’s minds off everything else that goes on in the world. For players and spectators alike, pro sports are a privilege. While pro athletes don’t have to be the perfect role models, there comes a point where what they do can deter potential viewers.
After all, the number of people in the United States who have been victimized by domestic violence is staggeringly high. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, one in four women and one in seven men have been the victims of “severe physical violence” by an intimate partner in their lifetimes. Do sports leagues just expect those people to sit idle and root for players who have done the same sorts of things their abusers did? The answer, of course, should be no — and there’s data to back that up.
The NFL suffered a TV ratings decline of more than 17 points combining the 2016 and 2017 seasons. According to a JD Power poll from 2017, 24 percent of respondents said they watched less football because of the league’s off-the-field issues which included domestic violence (the national anthem protests were a separate category). Currently, the league has a mandatory six-game suspension policy for domestic violence.
[Related: Deflated: NFL popularity at new low, just 3 in 10 are ‘favorable’]
Even so, top-level sports leagues don’t seem to take this problem seriously. Most recently, the San Francisco 49ers released 2017 first-round linebacker Reuben Foster following a domestic violence arrest. He was almost immediately signed by the Washington Redskins in what can only be described as a morally bankrupt decision.
These moves also happen outside of football.
In Major League Baseball this past season, for example, both the New York Yankees and Houston Astros had domestic abusers as their closers (Aroldis Chapman and Roberto Osuna) because they had served their suspensions (Chapman in 2016 and Osuna earlier in the 2018 season). The Astros went out of their way to acquire Osuna at the trade deadline, while he was still serving his suspension.
In 2014, Seattle Reign FC, the pro soccer team that goalkeeper Hope Solo played for, only suspended her for one game for violence against her husband, nephew, and half-sister; she was even allowed to compete for the U.S. Women’s National Team in the 2016 Rio Olympics — as embarrassing as that is.
Ultimately, consumers dictate the market in the entertainment industry. Since 91.5 percent of NFL fans believe it is unacceptable for a player to commit domestic violence, according to data TickPick provided the Washington Examiner, it is fair to assume fans of all sports condemn such acts. That said, millions of Americans may be more apt to watch sports if they knew their support would not be paying the salary of an abuser. Perhaps these leagues should take note.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a freelance writer who has been published with USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other media outlets.
