Michael Sam and the NFL
When Michael Sam announced he was gay on Feb. 9, there were shockwaves across the sports world. NBA player Jason Collins had come out in 2013, but Sam was a football player playing a brutal sport and preparing for the NFL draft. And while Collins was known around NBA circles and thought of highly, he is approaching the end of his career. Sam was a big name in college football as the SEC Defensive Player of the Year. Sam’s announcement is also an interesting case study for how the media and various outlets covered it. It’s arguably the most significant sports story of 2014 on a cultural level, and many outlets took differing paths in coverage of Sam and the reaction from around the sports world.
Sam’s announcement was a calculated three-pronged media attack. At around 8 p.m. on Feb. 9, The New York Times, ESPN and Outsports.com all posted articles in which Sam declared his sexuality. The New York Times piece was written by John Branch and covered how he came out to his teammates at the University of Missouri. It also laid out the current landscape of the NFL and how his decision might be perceived at a professional level. On nytimes.com, the article is accompanied by a video interview with Sam. The ESPN article, written by Chris Connelly, focuses on similar themes as The New York Times. That piece is accompanied by a longer video interview with Sam used across ESPN platforms in the days after the announcement. Finally, Outsports.com tied everything together with its story, which provided a behind the scenes look at how the announcement was made and how long it was in the works. That piece, written by Cyd Zeigler, one of the managers of Outsports.com, essentially explains why and how readers saw the story and its different elements when they did. It also provides background information on how the reporters and news outlets were chosen.
The obvious reaction to Sam’s announcement is that the story was very well controlled. As is detailed in Zeigler’s piece, many other news outlets were in on the story. Initially, publicist Howard Bragman and agents Joe Barkett and Cameron Weiss wanted Sam to make his announcement Feb. 26, the day after the NFL combine, where Sam would be poked and prodded and interviewed by countless NFL personnel officials to figure out where he should be drafted. ESPN gave Sam the broadest platform for television and web, while The New York Times is the nation’s second-largest print paper and Branch had already written well-received articles on LGBT athletes. Then, Outsports.com would cover the behind the scenes aspect, since it had already hosted other LGBT athletes’ announcements.
MORE: The Making of Michael Sam’s Decision
Rumors about Sam were spreading behind the scenes, though, and after Barkett and Weiss were repeatedly approached about Sam’s sexuality during the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala., the decision was made to move the announcement up to the week of Feb. 10 after the Super Bowl. It would be competing with the Winter Olympics, but the goal was to control the narrative behind Sam’s announcement and not let another outlet dictate things. Zeigler wrote on Outsports.com that Sam received interview requests from the Columbia Missourian — the journalism school paper at Missouri — Sports Illustrated, CNN, BuzzFeed, Fox Sports and Bleacher Report. Plenty of people knew the story, and each day that went by meant there was a greater chance of someone leaking it publicly, which would undo all of the planning by Sam, Bragman, Barkett and Weiss. So they moved the announcement up to the night of Feb. 9, and Sam made his announcement.
In his post titled “’The eagle has landed’: the exclusive behind-the-scenes story of how NFL prospect Michael Sam came out” on Outsports.com, Zeigler brings up an interesting reason why he thinks the story wasn’t leaked publicly. Zeigler mentions the Grantland piece “Dr. V’s Magical Putter” in which author Caleb Hannan outed a transgender woman who later committed suicide. The article led to much backlash, with countless websites publishing takedowns or essays on why the story shouldn’t have been written. Grantland editor in chief Bill Simmons even wrote a column about his experience with the story, and Grantland allowed space for Christina Kahrl, an ESPN.com baseball writer, to write a post titled “What Grantland Got Wrong.” In today’s society, there is increased sensitivity toward LGBT issues, and the reaction to “Dr. V’s Magical Putter” caused a chilling effect on outlets pursuing stories that had to do with LGBT athletes, especially when it came to outing them. In a football media environment heavy with gossip, that could have been the one thing keeping Sam’s story private.
Still, as other publications moved to do secondary reporting on Sam’s announcement, there was backlash. Later on the night of Feb. 9, Sports Illustrated published a story by Pete Thamel and Thayer Evans, two of its top college football writers, titled “How will the news that Michael Sam is gay affect his NFL draft stock?” In it, Thamel and Evans quoted eight anonymous sources that worked with NFL personnel, and they mostly answered that the NFL wasn’t ready for a gay player because of locker room culture. The sources also said that Sam could be perceived as a “distraction” by teams because of the media attention he will bring. One source, a veteran scout said, “I just know with this going on this is going to drop him down. There’s no question about it. It’s human nature. Do you want to be the team to quote-unquote ‘break that barrier?’” The sources largely played into the stereotype that a gay man will not be accepted in the NFL because football is “still a man’s-man game” and it would “chemically imbalance” the locker room.
The reaction to the Sports Illustrated story was swift and harsh. Author Stefan Fatsis — who tried out for the Denver Broncos kicking job for a book — wrote a piece for Slate.com and Deadspin.com titled “How Sports Illustrated Botched the Michael Sam Story” with the subheadline “The bad journalism that has everyone convinced the NFL isn’t ready for a gay player.” In it, Fatsis debates “whether [the sources] deserved a platform in the first place, and whether the conclusions drawn from their words were a reasonable reflection of a broader reality.” Fatsis deconstructed the language surrounding the sources and determined that the sources were mostly “second-tier personnel” who won’t make the decision on whether Sam is drafted. Still, the Sports Illustrated story was one of the most significant follow-ups to the initial announcements, and Fatsis cites a story in The Los Angeles Times where the announcement got one paragraph and the comments gathered by Thamel and Evans got 10. Fatsis also questions Sports Illustrated’s Peter King for granting anonymity to sources in a story he wrote, and King’s sources reiterated most of the same things that were said in Thamel and Evans’ story. The narrative immediately presented by Sports Illustrated wasn’t balanced, and it allowed a greater platform for Sam’s detractors to use. Fatsis does point out that, overall, the magazine did put together a solid package of reporting on Sam’s announcement from a variety of angles — not just reaction from anonymous sources.
Sports Illustrated was the one mainstream outlet that appeared to receive a great amount of vitriol for the way it covered Sam’s announcement. Given what was said in King, Thamel and Evans’ reporting, the outrage was understandable. But at the same time, it’s hard to blame them for taking the angle they did. American society is obsessed with football. So the logical question after Sam’s announcement is “How does this affect what is going to happen on the field?” That same question is asked after almost every arrest and every personal problem that an athlete has to deal with. It’s the way that the media landscape is wired, and it’s what everyone wants to know. But while the effort was there in search of the story’s next step, the execution could have been much better. Only one side is presented, and it isn’t fair. The articles by King, Thamel and Evans gave dissenters a platform to voice their opinions of Sam, and it does present things in a way that make it seem like there’s no way Sam will get drafted or succeed in the NFL. The anonymity granted also allowed Sam to be criticized with no accountability, and journalists should always be trying to keep sources accountable for what they say.
In terms of the on the field component of the story, that’s another area that the media has covered, though it’s hard to tell how much it matters. One scout brings up Sam’s stats in the Thamel and Evans’ story, especially the fact that nine of his 11.5 sacks came in three games the scout called “garbage competition” — Vanderbilt, Florida and Arkansas State. Therefore, according to the scout, Sam isn’t as good as advertised. But Thamel and Evans failed to have a counterpoint in their portrayal of Sam and his body of work. Football is often regarded as the ultimate team game — something the anonymous scout would surely say — so numbers can never tell the whole story. The games against Arkansas State and Vanderbilt were both in the season’s first give games while the Florida matchup was Missouri’s seventh on Oct. 19. It’s reasonable to assume that other teams made adjustments, such as double teams or different blocking schemes, later in the season to account for Sam’s impact, which hurt Sam’s individual stats. The Missouri defense, however, was incredibly talented and stingy, and by focusing on Sam, other possibilities opened up for other players in Missouri’s front seven. In Missouri’s Nov. 9 win at Kentucky, in which Sam didn’t record a sack, fellow defensive lineman Kony Ealy had three. Football is complicated and arguing against Sam’s ability to be successful in the NFL shouldn’t hinge on one-sided arguments that cherry-pick a few numbers for the sole purpose of discrediting his body of work.
Overall, Michael Sam likely will be accepted by the NFL. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll become a star or be successful. His draft stock — which already had a wide range with projections from the third round to seventh round — shouldn’t be harmed, and he’ll get his chance to stick with a team. From a purely football perspective, he is an interesting prospect who could fit in and be successful in the right scheme. Some pundits have already pointed out Green Bay, New England, Baltimore and the New York Giants as potential landing spots, since those organizations have reputations of being innovative and some executives — like Packers general manager Ted Thompson — have already said Sam’s sexuality shouldn’t be an issue. In the 24-hour news cycle, Sam is going to attract attention wherever he goes, but the calculated nature of his announcement along with his media appearances in the month-plus since show that he’s a savvy individual that has the end goal of being successful in the NFL.
Based on the sheer number of people involved with the NFL, there’s bound to be skeptics that are intolerant of Sam’s presence on the football field. But there’s also going to be a substantial number of people supporting him. For every Chris Culliver, the San Francisco 49ers who made anti-gay remarks before the Super Bowl in 2013, there’s a Brendon Ayanbadejo or Chris Kluwe. Sam is entering an environment where there will be support. Additionally, the NFL likely will be on its best behavior after the accusations made by Kluwe against Minnesota Vikings special teams coordinator Mike Priefer for making homophobic comments, not to mention the Miami Dolphins recently fired offensive line coach Jim Turner and head trainer Kevin O’Neill after they were both mentioned in a report looking into offensive tackle Jonathan Martin’s harassment with the team. The sentiment appears to be shifting in the NFL at the perfect time for Sam to be accepted. While some media coverage has made it appear his acceptance will be difficult, Sam is playing at a time where his play on the field should dictate his presence in the league.
