NFL continues reach for female fans through breast cancer awareness [View all]

[Rhinodawg]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2014/09/30/nfl-breast-cancer-awareness/16508773/


The NFL's annual breast cancer awareness campaign, always in October, has long been the league's most substantial plan to appeal to women.

Stadiums will be awash in pink starting Thursday when the Minnesota Vikings visit the Green Bay Packers.

With the NFL under attack over its handling of players accused of domestic violence, its efforts to raise awareness toward breast cancer could fall flat; after all, the off-the-field trouble led Procter and Gamble to remove its sponsorship of the event.

"It will be harder to take it seriously, absolutely," said Anne Osborne, an associate professor of communications at Syracuse who has spent the past five years researching the NFL's female fan base. "I think even before all of this, you would hear people routinely say that they don't get the connection between football and breast cancer. It's not a natural connection. For some people it seemed like just a PR effort to acknowledge women's presence around football. Now in light of all of this, it will ring as sort of hollow."