Roger Goodell released a press release yesterday in which he admits that the NFL has suffered from Affluenza for close to 40 years.
Affluenza is a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition over debt, anxiety, and stress resulting from the dogged pursuit of more. It is now a recognized mental illness by the Medical Board of California.
An emotional Goodell outlined three major ways the NFL was suffering from Affluenza.
The first was the denial of the concussion issue where the NFL decided to play dumb on the mental decline of players from repeated head trauma. This year’s movie Concussion told the story of its discovery and the attempted cover up by the NFL.
“We thought that the doctors we paid millions of dollars to would disagree with us and lose their jobs,” said Goodell. “But instead they decided to accept mass loads of money and job security.”
The second example of Affluenza was the threatening of sending a team to Los Angeles if they didn’t build a new stadium at the tax payers expense.
This threat is now moot as the NFL is certainly sending San Diego, Oakland, St. Louis or all the teams to Los Angeles for the next season.
“We might bankrupt the cities of San Diego, Oakland, or St. Louis. Or all of them. We don’t really know,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.
The new team’s stadium will be built in Inglewood, a notoriously low-income community. The City Council of Inglewood welcomes the gentrification following a stadium move there.
“I’ve always wanted a football team but more than anything I’ve wanted to get out of Inglewood. It’s a rough neighborhood,” said Curtis Smith. “And now that they’re raising the property taxes on my dilapidated home, I’ll have to move.”
The third result of the NFL’s severe case of Affluenza came to a head this year when they finally had to stop being classified as a non-profit organization even though they generate more money than any other professional sport in America.
“We can no longer take advantage of a non-profit status. Mostly because we’re not prepared to share our financial records with the government and let them see all the other illegal things we’ve done with our money,” said Goodell.
Of course, there are other examples of Affluenza including the plethora of felonies ranging from murder to grand larceny that its players have committed over the years.
“We at the NFL realize now that we have a problem. And now that we have addressed that we have a problem, we’re confident it will resolve itself naturally.”