Good Sports

The report I read was making a big deal about the amount of fines assessed to a group of five NFL players after a particularly fractious game held in Cincinnati back on December 13. More than one hundred thousand dollars worth. These fines were handed down after a series of flagrant fouls, most of which fell under the heading of "unsportsmanlike conduct." In the course of the game, there were penalties that corresponded to those incidents, but sometimes those fifteen yarders don't really have the impact that the league would like. That's when they go after players in ways that it is hoped that will have an impact on them after the game is over: making them pay for their bad behavior. Win or lose, you have to pay if you do something that catches the eyes of the league office. In a game that tends to reward players for playing hard and delivering hits that knock big men down, sometimes hurting them in the process. It's all a matter of how and when that hurting takes place.
There were also some players who were fined for their celebrations after plays that didn't involve brutalization of others. They were asked to pay for their bad sportsmanship. In some ways it makes sense that a game between these longtime division rivals would result in a reverse payday for the National Football League, but it set me to thinking: Where exactly does that money go after it has been deducted from the very large and at times excessive salaries of these athletes? According to the powers that be, all that money goes to "charitable causes," including a fund set up for their retired players. Some players have made requests where the money be sent, but that's not they way the ball currently bounces. The front office is the place that decides where the money goes, and we just have to be patient and trusting with that.
But why doesn't that money get spent in the communities where they would do the most good? Sure, I appreciate the NFL looking after its own, but what if that  $118,649 had landed in a Cincinnati food bank? Or a homeless shelter? Or a youth football program? It sees to me that the National Football League, which certainly has where others have not, could really do themselves proud by giving something back to the communities that buy their tickets and their swag, the ones who make all that unsportsmanlike conduct possible in the first place.
Or maybe that's less of a Vince Lombardi kind of idea than a Bernie Sanders kind of thought. But that's a lot of money for excessively celebrating yanking someone's facemask.