Nike’s Women Problem

By Timothy Egan, The New York Times
April 21, 2010

Is there anything creepier than a big, beer-breathed celebrity athlete exposing himself in a night club and hitting on underage girls, all the while protected by an entourage of off-duty cops? Well, yes. It’s the big, corporate sponsor — Nike, in this case — that continues trying to sell product with the creep as their role model.

You have to go a long way to find anything as disgusting as a night on the town with Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, as described in a 572-page Georgia police report of a sexual assault accusation against him last month.

After hours of drinking and carousing, the six-foot-five-inch football player followed an intoxicated 20-year-old student into a club’s bathroom and forced her to have sex, the woman told police. When her friend appealed for help, she was ignored by the bodyguards, the report indicated.

Prosecutors said they would not file charges against the quarterback — in part because of sloppy police work by officers who fawned over the athlete — but they castigated his behavior. This was the second time in less than a year that Roethlisberger has been accused of sexual assault. Last year, a woman claimed in a civil suit that Roethlisberger raped her in a hotel room in Lake Tahoe, an allegation he denies. The Georgia report also mentioned a third woman who said a drunken Roethlisberger accosted her repeatedly on two occasions.

If this guy didn’t have a pair of Super Bowl Rings and a $102 million contract to entertain us on Sundays, most people would see him for what he is: a thug with a predatory sense of entitlement.

On Wednesday, the NFL suspended him for six games and ordered him to “comprehensive behavioral counseling.” The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which has a done an admirable job of bringing the tawdry details to a troubled Steeler Nation, has editorialized about the “sting of betrayal” that fans feel, so much so that he may even be traded imminently. Even a local sponsor, the maker of Big Ben’s Beef Jerky, has dropped him, citing his recent behavior.

But Nike, the shoe-maker to the world, the biggest brand in the endorsement game, is standing by Roethlisberger — at least for the moment — just as they continue to back Tiger Woods after his serial infidelities.

For Nike, Roethlisberger has been used in commercials to sell the aptly named “Marauder” cleats. The company did not return my phone calls for comment, but in an e-mail earlier they said, “Ben continues to be part of the Nike roster of athletes.”

Really? Ben Roethlisberger, a man most parents would not let near their daughter, let alone their community center, is a fit representative for one of the premier American corporations.

What, exactly does it take for Nike to dump a jock? Dog-fighting will do it. After Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick pleaded guilty to running a felony dog-fighting ring, Nike took action. “We consider any cruelty to animals inhumane and unacceptable,” the company said at the time.

But cruelty to women is O.K. I don’t know how else to read the company’s inconsistent stand. Here is a guy who treats women like garbage, yet a company that boasts of having humane corporate values uses him as their front man. Ditto Tiger Woods. Same with Kobe Bryant after a rape allegation, a case that was later dropped.

I’m sure Roethlisberger can live without his beef jerky contract or the praise of the hometown newspaper. But if you took away his swoosh, that would sting. Throughout the sporting world, and in many schools, the real pariah is the lone athlete not carrying Nike’s water.

Besides, what’s the point of having someone like Roethlisberger wearing a company logo in public? Do people really decide to buy shoes because a brute who spends his nights drunkenly pawing at women, and worse, lent his name to them?

Our culture puts a premium on athletic performance, and very little on off-field character. So it is. And “corporate ethics,” of course, is one of those oxymorons that should be explained to fresh-faced business students. Kids: in American capitalism, we reward Wall Street failure and Back Street sexual assault.

Perhaps a certain creepy cred does help move product. Sales of Nike’s golf line have remained consistent in the months since Tiger Woods was found to be a nightmare husband.

But I’ve come to expect more of Nike with regard to women. I’ve met women runners and soccer players who are at the top of their game, world-class athletes, who have been ignored by all but Nike. At the company headquarters in Oregon, Nike helps obscure female athletes train and find a community of equally motivated women.

That’s one message from Nike. The other is: It’s O.K. for a buffoon of a man to disrespect women, so long as he continues to throw a football well.