Good Business Mad
Ben Roethlisberger's NFL suspension is awfully TV convenient
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is really mad at Ben Roethlisberger. Just not mad enough to upset any of the league's lucrative television partners.
Goodell suspended the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback — who keeps getting accused of rape — for six games this afternoon. Which, in one of those amazing coincidences, will give Roethlisberger just enough time to make what will be a highly-anticipated return in the Steelers' first national prime-time game of the season.
That stern Goodell probably consulted with Tiger Woods on appropriate return times.
CultureMap first reported that Roethlisberger was likely looking at a five to six game suspension last night. You didn't have to consult tea leaves or Dionne Warwick to see this coming. Once the NFL schedule came out and all five of the Steelers' prime-time games happened to take place later than Week 7, even Snooki could have made the leap.
Big Ben misses those first six games, goes through that surely stringent "comprehensive behavioral counseling" that Goodell is mandating, takes his first week back to get re-acclimated and then ... snap, he's running back onto the field for the Steelers' Week 8 Sunday Nighter at New Orleans. Suddenly, the NFL's premium game of the week gets a sure ratings bonanza.
Goodell just lost all his tough cop credibility. When is NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol sworn in as the new league czar?