The National Football League (NFL) stands as one of the most visible and dominant organizations within American popular culture. However, despite being at the pinnacle of its popularity and the precipice of its seemingly last obstacle of international expansion, the last decade has seen the league confronting a series of crises that have destabilized and challenged the previously coherent meanings of the sport put out by the league and broadly recirculated within popular discourses. Propelled by these crises, the previously accepted framing of the league as “America's game” has come under increased scrutiny as media, citizens, and public officials critically reevaluate the role and merits of the league in contemporary American society.
In this project I examine three cases situated in or around these crises: (1) the increased awareness of the medical dangers of playing the game, (2) the emergence of luxury stadiums, and (3) the league's philanthropic efforts. These case are an important heuristic lens for examining contemporary tensions between the NFL, identity, community, and commerce. As the league increasingly positions itself as a global media and sport corporation, it is upsetting and reshaping its historical localisms: the relationships to its fans, the cities that host its teams, and even the country which it calls home. Furthermore, the economic pressures of continual capitalist expansion as guided by neoliberal restructuring—favoring privatization, the primacy of unregulated markets, and ideologies of individual determination—require the incessant commodification of not only the NFL and its players, but also its constructed meanings. In examining these cases, this dissertation establishes and analyzes the often contradictory and contested motivations, aspirations, and meanings of the league in contemporary U.S. society.