elsewhere: no "football wives" this season

[iainpj]

Media Relations: no football wives/ May 15, 2007:

... From the NFL point of view, the problem with Playmakers and Football Wives was not, and wouldn't be, the lack of realism or the stereotypes. The problem would be that they were entirely too real. After all, we've had two NFL players go to jail this year alone for repeat offenses; Ricky Williams is about to be denied re-entry into the NFL after failing Yet Another Test (for pot, again, of course). We've had players coming out of the closet after their career, and clearly stating that the homophobia was so virulent that they never even conceived of coming out while they played. One player's wife accused him not only of adultery, but of committing it with his best (male) friend, although she later withdrew that accusation. There's even been a murder, although the player who died committed no crime and was in no way to blame. The problem with Playmakers, and the problem with Football Wives is that they would have taken these scandals -- Ripped from the headlines, as the "Law and Order" shows like to put it -- and presented them to us for our delectation, in a nicely cheesy format, just as the NFL was hoping to sweep everything under the rug and present to us its nice corporate face, squeaky clean, new enforcement policies in place to maintain cleanliness, all is right with the world. Can't have some stupid soap opera reminding people that NFL players are human and screw up really badly at times. No sir, just can't have that.

You really wonder what made any division of Disney think that they could possibly get away with it...