More on the NFL Shakedown
By The NFL is now retroactively applying its belief that musicians who perform at the Super Bowl should not only pay for the privilege, but should also pay the NFL for the money they make after the fact from the publicity:
Because there is nothing more wholesome than the modern-day equivalent of Roman bloodsport, the NFL is very concerned about morals. (It is the sexy stuff and swear words that will set our nation’s youth on the path to delinquency.) As you may recall, M.I.A. violated this sacred trust when she raised her middle finger to the camera at Super Bowl XLVI, forcing awkward conversations between parents and their kids about how it’s only okay to raise your finger like that when Daddy is mad in traffic.
And now M.I.A. has paid dearly for it—although how dearly, exactly, remains unclear, as she and the NFL have reached an undisclosed settlement in the NFL’s lawsuit against her. The NFL originally sought $1.5 million for the singer’s “flagrant disregard” for the NFL’s values, then it upped that demand by a staggering additional $15.1 million, supposedly to compensate for all the free publicity she got for the gesture. For her part, M.I.A. has called the suit “a massive display of powerful corporation dick-shaking,” a spectacle that, if taken literally, would surely result in massive fines.
The lawsuit for using the middle finger is stupid enough as it is, but upping the lawsuit to sue M.I.A. for the money she supposedly made from the added publicity shows the greed of the billionaires who run the league has no bounds.