ABSTRACT
There is an expression that says silence is golden. When it comes to athletes not talking to the media, silence gets expensive. Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch was ned $50,000 for not speaking to journalists after a November 2014 football game (Hanzus, 2014). During Media Day for the Super Bowl that same season, Lynch said, “I’m just here so I won’t get ned,” 29 times during a ve-minute appearance with reporters (Stroud, 2015). The ne amount is somewhat understandable when considering that the Super Bowl almost always receives the highest amount of viewership in the United States: more than 112 million people watched the National Football League’s championship game in 2015, and NFL games represented seven of the ten single most-watched programs of the year (Sandomir, 2015). The growth of sport leagues is largely dependent on continued robust media coverage and such content is, in part, a function of a strong relationship between journalists and the leagues, teams, and athletes themselves (Genovese, 2013; McChesney, 1989; Rowe, 1999). Thus, it is unsurprising that the NFL threatened Lynch with such strict sanctions; refusing to speak to the media destabilized that mutually benecial relationship.
