The Cincinnati Bengals Don’t Care About Bloggers

Rarely will you see any content in this space in support of the Cincinnati Bengals, but recent developments with my employer have motivated me to speak out another instance in blog bashing, courtesy of the NFL.

You can catch the full story here, but to make a long story short, the Cincinnati Bengals threatened to sue the Fan-Sided fam for putting up images (which were fully credited) on the StripeHype blog. It’s messed up that the franchise, which isn’t in the best of situations with a disgruntled superstar receiver, a couple of sub-par season and jail birds every other week, has the time and energy to intimidate a fan blog. Emphasis on fan, because ultimately, each blogger in the Fan-Sided family cares about the team they cover and wants to see it succeed.

The NFL, in all of its pomp and circumstance, can sick lawyers on bloggers but can’t create proactive player development plans to ensure that their employees aren’t models of athletes-behaving-badly? Make that make sense. Bottom line, a decent blogger quit on principle, and the fellas that run the Fan-Sided operation are now probably a significant must-read on Roger Goodell’s RSS reader.

Can’t we all just get along? If only the suits would see that blogging isn’t designed to hurt anyone. At best, it’s a cost-efficient marketing tool that can reach millions of people in a matter of seconds. At worst, it’s still photos of Carson Palmer doing a beer bong.

Make sure that you check out the Stripe Hype, and comment on this unfortunate situation. If there’s any justice, the tiger will roar once again in the near future.