When Michael Vick’s lawyer announced Monday that the NFL star will plead guilty to federal dogfighting conspiracy charges, putting the Atlanta Falcons quarterback’s career in jeopardy and leaving him subject to a prison term. The offense is punishable by up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, although federal sentencing guidelines most likely would call for less.
The word spread fast CNN, FOX News, MSNBC, ESPN and Bloomberg all lead the afternoon news with Vick’s admission of guilt and it threw the number one sports story to the top of mainstream newscasts.
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CBS, FOX, NBC and ABC all put Vick in their top news blocks as either a lead story or, at the worst, the third story behind Hurricane Dean and flooding.
Michael Vick is probably the most visible professional athlete to be headed to jail in the history of sports.
ESPN flew into all Vick mode with total coverage with reports from the courthouse in Richmond and from Falcons camp in Atlanta.
CNN, Fox News and MSNBC were scrambling to find sports and legal experts to cover the all aspects of the case.
The word out of Atlanta was that Falcons owner Arthur Blank might cut Vick before the end of the day. Meanwhile Commissioner Roger Goodell was in contact with the Falcons and it was thought that the NFL would hold off on any action and simply keep the indefinite suspension in place.
The NFL will begin airing public service announcements on the issues of animal cruelty very soon. The Vick incident is a huge public relations nightmare that the league will seek to repair as soon as possible.
Michael Vick is the $100 million quarterback, a spokesman for Nike, in Madden video games and the pitchman for a number of Atlanta-based businesses. His #7 is one of the top selling jerseys in the NFL.
Atlanta based radio stations showed that despite his admission of guilt he still has his supporters and, with one of the largest African American fan bases in the league, there could be a huge backlash. Many have speculated that the Falcons will lead the NFL in no shows this season.
The hot topic on the mainstream news channels was how many years would he serve in prison? Meanwhile on sports radio the question was will Vick ever play football again?
The Vick case moved sports from SportsCenter to the top story on all newscasts. And subsequently, it moved the sports pages to the front page. It seems that at the earliest if ever Vick may be back in the NFL would be 2010. This will be a story not soon forgotten in either sports or mainstream news.
Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer. Check out his blog, Watch this! on www.examiner.com.
