After being a fan for over 50 years I am no longer following my hometown team, the Minnesota Vikings, and I will likely not watch many NFL games. There are many reasons for this but primarily it is because the Vikings stood by Adrian Peterson, the face of the franchise despite:
1. Whipping/beating his four year old son bloody.
2. Having fathered an estimated seven children by five different women. He only learned about one of his sons after he was murdered by the mother's ex-boyfriend. And yes, DNA tests were performed.
3. Being involved in a sex orgy while engaged to be married, with women that were not his fiancee.
4. Getting into bar fights.
5. Getting numerous speeding tickets.
In case you are slow on the uptake Adrian Peterson is a violent, degenerate outlaw. His reward is a $12.75 million dollar contract since, after all, he can carry a football.
The Vikings owner, Zigi Wilf, has been convicted of cheating his real estate business partners out of $85 million dollars by withholding revenues from them from a joint ownership of an apartment building in New Jersey over a 21 year span. Wilf has also bamboozled the citizens of Minnesota into building a new stadium for the Vikings in which he has pledged to pay $478M of the $975M project. An analysis of the $478M reveals that with personal seat licenses, luxury booth ticketing, naming rights, NFL revenue sharing, and "loans" from the NFL (that are paid back by through the team's share of licensed product revenue) shows the Wilf's will pay less than $70M or perhaps pay nothing at all. With the new stadium secured his reward will be a near doubling of the value of the NFL franchise, currently estimated to be worth $1.15 billion. Wilf paid $600 million for the team in 2005.
The Vikings coach is Mike Zimmer, a foul mouthed obnoxious person whose speeches and tirades are routinely censored for public consumption.
So basically, I cannot in good conscience cheer for this team.
Take a look around the NFL and meet the fine, upstanding citizen millionaires that play the game. Ray Rice, Ray Lewis, Greg Hardy, Tony McDaniel, Dez Bryant, Ray McDonald, etc. etc.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/nfl/arrests/
So basically, I cannot in good conscience follow the NFL.