Public Relations Nightmare

Remember in yesterday's blog I wrote that it was possible for one man to bring down an entire organization? Even I didn't foresee the coming storm in all of its potential magnitude. Yes, Adrian Perterson lost all of his sponsors yesterday, including Under Armor and Wheaties and a whole host of others, costing him millions and millions of dollars. Money which he will never get back no matter how all of this works out.

Vikings charity work was cancelled yesterday by the CHARITIES they were supposed to help because  they no longer want the stink of the Vikings on them. The Vikings have become pariahs to the Minnesota community at large. Governor Dayton has demanded that the Vikings suspend Peterson until all of this is settled, stating publicly that the whole Vikings organization has become an embarrassment to the state for reinstating Peterson.

And more Vikings sponsors are pulling THEIR corporate financial support of the Vikings. Revenue, millions of dollars, has simply got up and left the Vikings organization. The Vikings are no longer allowed to sell Peterson's jersey as the NFL demanded it be pulled from every store selling it. One of the top selling jerseys of the past several years is no longer available. The gigantic revenue stream of that one jersey is lost, probably forever.

But it seems that is just the tip of the ever increasing iceberg.

National sponsors of the the NFL, not just the Vikings, are becoming very nervous. They've written long corporate letters to the NFL demanding that they fix this public relations disaster problem NOW.

Anheuser-Busch, the parent company of the official beer of the NFL, issued a strong statement expressing its displeasure over how the league has responded to its players being connected to incidents of domestic violence and child abuse. They give the NFL $200 million a year.

Campbell Soup, Pepsi, Visa ,and McDonald's, are all ready to vastly curtail their NFL their ad spending. The figures talked about, billions of dollars, is mind-blowing. These threats are taken very seriously. The very league itself is now in danger of collapse. There simply won't be enough money for teams to pay their bills if that happens.

The quote that sent chills down the spine of every NFL owner? From Budweiser, "We are not yet satisfied with the league's handling of behaviors that so clearly go against our own company culture and moral code."

Ray Rice started it, but Adrian Peterson has now cemented in the sponsors minds that the NFL IS NO LONGER SOMETHING THEY WANT TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH.

Worse? NFL players and the players association are demanding the Rice suspension be lifted. This union is so out of touch with the reality of the situation that their actions are going to produce even more repercussions from the government, the public at large, and sponsors.

And the players all tweeting their support of Adrian Peterson are being perceived by the sponsors as the NFL players, in general, are all as bad as Rice and Peterson. They see the players as champions of domestic violence, spousal abuse, and child beatings.

This is not going to end well. The NFL as we know it is going to become a very different creature over the next few months. Player salaries and corporate sponsorships are going to become drastically reduced, and players who don't have spotless reputations in evey area of their lives are not going to be hanging around long.

Big Brother has arrived for the NFL players, and most are not going to make the cut.

Can one player bring down a league? The scary answer is yes.

And the NFL is just starting to realize this. Team owners and league officials are going to make some very tough, quick decisions, over the next couple of days.

And Adrian Peterson is not going to like those decisons.

The Titanic has already hit the iceberg. How long they stay afloat is up to the owners, and they are all heading to the lifeboats.