The NFL certainly hopes that Jim Trotter’s lawsuit goes away quietly. Having a former employee of NFL Media allege that two team owners openly made racist comments about black players and employees is not something the league wants its media partners covering and according to RJ Choppy, one of those partners seems to be complying.
Wednesday morning on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas, Choppy and his partners Shan Shariff and Bobby Belt discussed the way ESPN reported on the accusations in Trotter’s lawsuit.
“There’s two people in this story and right there on the right side, the top headline: ‘Bills Owner Made Racist Comment Lawsuit Alleges,’” he said reading from ESPN’s website. “And that is ESPN being the gutless organization that they are. If they wanted to promote this story, they would have put, which they do every other day, ‘Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones Makes Racist Comment.’”
In his lawsuit, Trotter accuses the league of retaliation and racial discrimination. He accuses Jones of telling Black players concerned about diversity to “buy their own team and hire who they want to hire” and accuses Buffalo Bills owner Tom Pegula of saying that players participating in racial justice protests should “should go back to Africa and see how bad it is”.
Even staff members at ESPN have complained about how much the network leans on coverage of the team for clicks and ratings. Jones is one of the league’s biggest celebrities. It is curious that the network wouldn’t employ a similar strategy in this case.
To Choppy, there is no mystery. He believes it was a decision made to help a business partner.
“They want the story to go away,” he said. “So they say ‘Bills Owner’ does it because nobody will click on that or the amount of people that will click on it is probably far less than would had they put ‘Cowboys’ on it.”
Jim Trotter exited NFL Network this year when his contract was not renewed. The league claimed it was simply a cost-cutting move and was not tied to Trotter questioning Commissioner Roger Goodell’s commitment to diversity in league hiring practices.
