The NFL Players Association, the labor union representing the league’s players, denounced ESPN over its decision to remove itself from an investigative documentary on the league’s poor record on concussions.
A report Friday indicated that ESPN ended its partnership with PBS’s “Frontline” after the NFL pressured the cable sports empire to pull out of the documentary. ESPN pays the NFL more than $1 billion per year for the rights to broadcast “Monday Night Football.” Both the league and ESPN denied the report, but a spokesman for the NFLPA called the decision a “disappointing day for journalism.”
“I think any time that business interests get in the way of telling an important story like the one ‘Frontline’ was working on, I think that that’s a sad day, regardless of why or who or what the circumstances were,” NFLPA spokesman George Atallah told the Huffington Post.
Atallah said that the union was not involved in the documentary, opting instead to let the players themselves speak.
The documentary, titled “League of Denial,” is scheduled to air Oct. 8 and 15.
