 | |
| www.bestweekever.tv |
How the National Football League’s ‘Crucial Catch’ Campaign Fails Women
Feminist supporters of breast cancer awareness might argue that the “pink-presence” both on and off the field of the National Football League’s ‘Crucial Catch’ campaign is ultimately empowering for women. This is especially understandable when breast cancer early detection is coupled with the political message to make mammograms more accessible to lower income-level women. What these supporters fail to give proper attention, though, is both the substantial corporate gain and “other-ing” result from painting “pink” all over the NFL. When these supporters fail to recognize the monetary line of their spending, they risk celebrating an effort that uses gender and cancer for increased sales unrelated to the early detection message. Likewise, when feminists allow a color to represent a largely engendered disease in a male-exclusive sport, they risk supporting a patriarchal ideal. Rather than seeing the “pink-presence” of the NFL’s ‘Crucial Catch’ as progressive, it is important to recognize both the capitalistic and patriarchal motives of the NFL conglomerate by using “pink” to coalesce women into a gender-specific, increased-spending strata.
The Undeniable Good:
For many, the “pink-presence” on and off the National Football League fields achieves exactly what it claims: increased awareness for early breast cancer detection. And, in many immediate ways, it does. Not an NFL chat-room online can be found that didn’t discuss the “pink-presence” felt during the October onslaught. In this way, the conversation-starter worked: at least it got NFL fans, announcers, and players talking about breast cancer during Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The NFL Players Association even formed “One Team for the Cure,“ as an avenue for players to get more personally involved in promoting breast cancer awareness/research. No player was more visible than Arizona Cardinals’ wide-receiver Larry Fitzgerald Jr., who went so far as to sponsor signature gift-cards with Coldstone Creamery, donating five percent of all proceeds to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. He went further to donate $1,000 for every one of his catches completed and $5,000 for every touchdown he made in October. Also, all of the pink items seen worn by NFL players and coaches during the games were available for auction on nfl.com. According to nfl.com, “all NFL Auction proceeds during the month of October will benefit the American Cancer Society and team charities,” (nfl.com).
Cost of the Woman’s Dollar:
Although these initiatives and the acts of the individuals involved can be commended, it is important to remain vigilant of what such campaigns allow, especially when in the hands of multi-million dollar industry conglomerates such as the National Football League. In the September 30th press release, the NFL defined its 2010 ‘Crucial Catch’ as “ a national breast cancer screening-reminder and fund-raising campaign,” (nfl.com). The rest of the article details the on-field pink-ifications and auction-promises. Although there are several links to buying Breast Cancer Awareness merchandise, the article fails to name the percentage of donation given from non-auction, profitable sales. The article states plainly, “special pink merchandise will be available. . . with a portion of proceeds going to breast cancer charities,” (nfl.com). I was unable to obtain any further information regarding percentage or actual figures received by any breast cancer charities from the presumably high proceeds earned during October. The hitherto lack of transparency leads me to wonder if the NFL ‘Crucial Catch’ is an example of a large corporation using a breast cancer awareness “pink-presence” campaign to spur women, one of their highest merchandise demographics, into spending.
Pink, although relatively infant in the National Football League, is by no means new to the world of breast cancer fundraising and awareness. Concerns of corporations abusing breast cancer campaigns is no less common. According to Pink Ribbon International, their “Think Pink! is a consumer awareness initiative, which anticipates the growing concern regarding the staggering number of pink ribbon products and promotions being marketed,”(pinkribbon.org). This serves as indicator that “pink” has been used as a capitalist spending promoter before. NFL’s use of the ‘Crucial Catch,’ would not be deemed “Pink Abuse,” however, even by Pink Ribbon. “Pink Abuse,” is defined as “companies who promote pink ribbon campaigns, but also manufacture products linked to the disease,” (pinkribbon.com). Although I agree with the need to police such companies first, I feel there is a place in “Pink Abuse” for mismanaged cause-marketing like that found in the NFL ‘Crucial Catch’ campaign.
The Feminine Touch:
The National Football League is the United States’ most competitive level of professional American football. Nowhere is it necessary to delineate according to gender; the NFL has always been a male-only league. That is not to say that it does not hire many female employees, but none of them are hired in an athlete-capacity. The closest “female-presence” on the field resides in the professional cheerleaders, paid not by the NFL but by the team owners. However, women retain a sizable percentage of overall viewers. In 2006, the latest data released, Sports Business Daily reported women fans created 37% of the overall fan base. Women are by no means absent from football but their “on-field” presence is almost non-existent.
Pink is the official color for breast cancer awareness and fundraising. It is the color adopted by the American Cancer Society’s “Making Strides Campaign,” the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Pink Ribbon International, and no doubt all other major and minor breast cancer organizations. Pink graces an unlimited number of merchandise dedicated in varying capacities to a breast cancer awareness/research campaign. In American society at large, pink is also representative of the birth of a female baby (just as blue celebrates ‘boy’). It is no great wonder how pink became the color to represent a cancer afflicting and killing mainly women; although men do get breast cancer, according to Pink Ribbon, women remain 100% more likely to be affected. Pink, the most characteristically effeminate hew in America, thus has both feminine and infantile connotations as well as a strong connection with breast cancer visibility.
The most visible effect of the NFL ‘Crucial Catch’ campaign was the on-field “pink-presence” this October. Pink was seen on game-balls, accenting player’s uniforms, on the coins used for the toss, the entirety of the official’s whistles, and on the goal-post padding. For the first NFL game in October, a pre-game announcement of the campaign was ended with a pink glow: from fans’ pink glow-sticks and lighted JumboTrons. In the October 17th game between the Denver Broncos and the New York Jets, hundreds of pink balloons were released at half-time, literally filling the stadium with pink. Although early detection may be the message of the campaign, the language is definitely color-recognition. With the hitherto mentioned societal connotations of pink, coupled with the male-dominated on-field presence of the NFL, the pink invasion of October served as an infantilizing reminder of woman’s “other-ness:” at best a guest color used to accent the games. From a feminist perspective, this gender representation, even under the excuse of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, proves deeply problematic.
Standing Questions:
The National Football League’s Breast Cancer Early Detection Awareness campaign, ‘Crucial Catch,’ placed heavy emphasis this October with the largest on-field pink-presence ever. In some ways, the color change did exactly that: brought Breast Cancer Awareness to football. However, undefined corporate gain from online and in store merchandise purchases as a direct result from hosting such a visible wardrobe-change leaves important questions unanswered. How much money was earned from the supposed increase in sales (unrelated to the early-detection message) propagated, no doubt, by female “supporters?” It also raises questions of females and football. Making up a large percentage of fan base (and thus purchases), are women as a whole being represented as an infantilizing accent color on a boys-only sport? In all, the NFL ‘Crucial Catch’ campaign becomes highly suspect when patriarchal ideals come to the forefront, coupled with the cause-marketing revenue run-up.
Sources:
http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/article/106148
http://www.pinkribbon.org/ThinkPink/ThinkPink/tabid/336/Default.aspx
http://www.nfl.com/pink
http://www.nflplayers.com/Fantasy-Promotions/One-Team-for-the-Cure/
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/09000d5d81af0979/article/nfl-supports-breast-cancer-awareness-month-with-crucial-catch-campaign
http://www.nflauction.nfl.com
http://www.nfl.com/photos
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20090727005294/en/Cold-Stone-Creamery-NFL-Icon-Larry-Fitzgerald
http://makingstrides.acsevents.org/site/PageServer?pagename=MSABC_FY11_reus_CauseMarketing
