Nike's Sponsorship of Ben Roethlisberger Sends Bad Message to Women

NY Times (Op-Ed): Nike's Women Problem, by Timothy Egan:

Is there anything creepier than a big, beer-breathed celebrity athlete exposing himself in a night club and hitting on underage girls, all the while protected by an entourage of off-duty cops? Well, yes. It’s the big, corporate sponsor — Nike, in this case — that continues trying to sell product with the creep as their role model.

You have to go a long way to find anything as disgusting as a night on the town with Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, as described in a 572-page Georgia police report of a sexual assault accusation against him last month.

After hours of drinking and carousing, the six-foot-five-inch football player followed an intoxicated 20-year-old student into a club’s bathroom and forced her to have sex, the woman told police. When her friend appealed for help, she was ignored by the bodyguards, the report indicated. . . .