This article is not necessarily about her, and it’s not about her impact on the organization. There’s enough coverage about that. It’s about exploitation, and it’s about oversaturation. It’s about the bandwagon, and it’s about selling out. Not only has this season wreaked of the players’ sweat and tears, but it has also wreaked desperation from the voices behind the camera in those conference rooms.
Let’s break it down: exploitation and oversaturation. Exploitation is benefitting at another person’s expense. Oversaturation is when the presence of something is being pushed to the public to an excessive degree that people begin to resent it. The NFL is showering the subject with lavish gifts when she visits their stadium and calls her “princess,” all while violating a basic right to privacy. At the same time, they’re blasting her face over their social media and getting all their paid players to entertain this little news story. They are getting the views and the money, and the fans are getting headaches. The final step of this redundant media journalism trend has occurred: the part where the resentment builds. All this resentment is getting the aggressive fans to care more about the person in the box than the players in the building. We’ve officially lost the plot.
We understand that she’s her, and people are going to want to fawn and cheer, but she’s not on the field. Don’t use her name in a press room to build more resentment. On the other hand, ESPN and the NFL are reposting videos taken by fans. Her fans are already getting videos on their algorithm. All you’re doing as an established media organization is alienating your current followers.
The organization is losing its integrity in people’s eyes. The cameras are one thing, but then all the references, all the sexual jokes on these recap shows, building the story of whether or not she’s a curse. The blame is all going to be shifted to the subject when you center her too much. It’s been known for a while that the NFL was desperate to reach more of the audience that they have now reached. Why else do we think they have repeatedly begged her to perform for the halftime show for several years now? The issue is you were trying to fix this problem in demographics without addressing the existing issues with the way women are treated by the large majority of the NFL’s audience. But that’s not the conversation we’re having right now.
Because here’s the thing: at the end of the day, you don’t have the American public creating the buzz over who’s going into the Superbowl. The whole conversation going into this has become the exploited, oversaturated subject and whether she’ll be there. We’re not talking about sports anymore. Neither is she. Kind of funny how that works.