The NFL will be a lot less pink this October according to Rick Chandler of sportsgrid.com. You can still by all of your pink gear on NFL.com, but the players will greatly scale back the amount of pink socks, wristbands, and gloves during games.
Paul Lukas of uniwatch.com who participated in a panel discussion on the NFL at New York University, is reporting that the NFL “will be dialing back the throttle a bit this year on Pinktober.” This is according to an insider from a “major sporting goods company.” There will still be “some pink,” but not as much and the plan is to not have any pink during nationally televised games. The buyer also said that the NFL had planned this months ago and that it had nothing to do with the recent domestic violence issues.
I find it very interesting to discontinue this new tradition that encompasses more involvement from the female NFL fan-base, during a time when female interest in the league might be in jeopardy. Given all of the attention that the league has received over domestic violence issues, it is almost certain that these plans were already in the works. There was some negative drawback from all of the pink on the field during last October’s games, mainly due to the visualization distraction it causes for television viewers. I hope that the NFL will continue to donate a portion of the pink merchandise sales to breast cancer research because that is the real difference maker.