No criminal charges made it easy for teams to justify their pursuits of DeShaun Watson. The newest Cleveland Brown still faces civil lawsuits from 22 women accusing him of sexual misconduct. All we have to go on is the fact that a grand jury chose not to indict. Whether that means he is innocent or there simply was not enough evidence to press charges is irrelevant. No charges means no charges.
That is the legal standing. With those civil suits still open, we can’t say that DeShaun Watson has been completely cleared. He isn’t the first NFL player to be accused of mistreating women and he won’t be the last. But, here are the Cleveland Browns betting their mortgage on a 22-team parlay that this will all blow over.
Professional football and radio are two very different worlds. One thing they have in common is that if you have talent and can make a difference in winning whatever game it is you are playing, there is someone willing to weigh the pros and cons of hiring you.
I talked to five program directors. I offered them all anonymity to answer a simple question. This is a competitive business and there are few sure things anymore in radio. If you had the chance to hire someone with the same upside and same baggage as DeShaun Watson, what kind of answers would you need before you made your decision?
Some were clear that even charges were too much of a red flag to risk their brand’s reputation on.
“I would need him to be cleared of the allegations,” one told me. “I personally wouldn’t be comfortable paying and standing behind someone who has that kind and that many allegations. Twenty two? WAY too much smoke.”
Okay, let’s forget the 22. Let’s just say the guy had a history.
“I want to put my head on the pillow at night,” the same programmer answered. “You don’t have to be a Saint, but that’s a bridge too far for me.”
A different PD told me that as soon as the issue comes up, he would start asking questions. He would want to know how his staff felt, how advertisers felt, even how his wife felt. Those answers would be important, but that wouldn’t be the end of his process.
“I think my most important thing would be the conversation with the man to see if there was any remorse whatsoever and see if he understands the severity of the situation,” this PD said. “At the end of the day I don’t think I would be comfortable pulling the trigger.”
Two of the people I talked to said it isn’t even a conversation they would be interested in having. Their bars would be too high to think they could realistically be cleared.
“I’d stay away unless I was completely convinced there would be no other incidents,” said one.
Another said not only could he not see himself wanting to bring someone with that kind of baggage onto his staff. He couldn’t see anyone in the industry being willing to justify hiring someone that you would constantly have to defend or make excuses for.
“Our talent has a constant and indelible connection to our communities,” he said. “There has to be a comfort and trust level there to make that work. That’s a completely different dynamic than an athlete playing for 60 minutes on 17 Sundays a year.”
Okay, I will give this PD that. Being an on-air presence five-days-a-week for fifty weeks each year is very different than “60 minutes on 17 Sundays a year.” But let’s not pretend this idea is so farfetched. People hire assholes all the time. Sometimes it comes after asking a lot of questions and getting the right answers and good information. Other times it is as simple as hiring the asshole is what whoever was doing the hiring wanted to do.
Right now, you are probably thinking of someone that did something terrible or said something racist on air that got a second chance. Maybe they even got a third. This happens in our industry.
There was only one person that I talked to that I walked away thinking they would be genuinely open-minded when presented with a situation like this. It didn’t mean that this PD gave me the impression that he would be a definite yes. He just seemed more open to the idea that someone with tremendous history and potential could be worth it.
“At the end of the day, talent always wins and I’ve always believed in second chances,” he said, “but if you’re going to lose key advertisers and also key members of your team, you’ll need to honestly evaluate if the risk is worth the potential reward.”
So now, let’s say whether the PDs want the guy or not, he has been hired. Maybe their boss thinks there is just too much money to be made to take a moral stand. I asked everyone if that were the case and the guy was going to be on your air, how would you want him to handle the accusations and charges against him?
It is easy to say that doing anything short of not at all acknowledging them is a mistake, but we live in the age of Google and Twitter and email. All of those digital tools make it very easy for someone else to control your story if you don’t do it yourself. So what is your plan?
“I’d want them to be willing to address it to the extent that they can legally,” said the PD I thought may actually be open to hiring this hypothetical broadcast DeShaun Watson. “Other than that, you have to simply move on. If this talent ends up ultimately being very successful, most people will forget about what happened in the past. People have short memories and in general love a ‘redemption story’. There’s a long list of athletes and celebrities who have rehabbed their images and flipped the script on the court of public opinion.”
The first PD likened his approach to the way Craig Carton addressed his return to WFAN. He noted that the charges were not at all similar, but WFAN and Carton didn’t try to run away from the issues they knew people wanted to talk about.
“I don’t think you can avoid his past. It’d be disingenuous and insulting to the listeners. I’d want him to publicly address it immediately.”
One PD I talked to had trouble settling on an answer. His initial thought was that of course you would want to get in front of the story, but maybe the answer isn’t that easy.
“On one hand I would want him to address it and ensure everyone that’s not who he is and that he will show and prove that he is worthy of the spot, and then on the other hand if you bring attention to it, then it’s back in the headlines,” he said.
Unfortunately, rarely are PDs judged on whether or not they do the right thing. Maybe a better way to say it is that the right thing for a PD to do may not always be the thing that is easiest to live with. After all, these jobs are about winning ratings battles and generating revenue. If an asshole can do that better than a guy that would never hurt a fly, you cannot simply dismiss the asshole without putting yourself at some risk.
Personally, I wouldn’t bet on it, but maybe that one PD is right. Maybe there is no way a programmer or GM in radio even has to do this much math when presented with a candidate with tremendous upside and just as much baggage. I would like to live in that world if you are dealing with someone accused of doing the things DeShaun Watson is as often as he is accused of doing them.
That’s not even about morality. That is about never feeling like you are safe. That is ultimately the choice the Browns have made. If it nets them an annual spot in the playoffs and even one AFC title, maybe the Haslem family and Kevin Stefanski will be comfortable with ever really be sure their franchise QB isn’t about to blow everything up for someone he met on Instagram.
All it takes is that happening one time and everyone loses their reputation and most of them lose their jobs. Is that a risk you can live with if you are pulling down radio thousands and not NFL millions?
Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
