How were sponsors and teams able to get out of their respective contracts with these individuals? Through the implementation of morality clauses into their contracts, of course!
We will take a deeper look at what morality clauses are, which will hopefully give you a better understanding of what they are. We will also look at whether or not morality clauses can be reversed in agreements, to favour the athletes if things go sour for the individual.
The most common occurrence that we see morality clauses in the sporting world revolve around corporations and sponsorships of individual players. Companies spend a lot of time and money on their sponsorship agreements with athletes, so a carefully worded morality clause can go a long way for these organizations if a sponsored athlete conducts themselves in a way that makes the company look bad.
Two examples of athletes losing sponsors due to negative behaviour are the infamous Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant. Tiger Woods was involved in the highly publicized scandal with women that he cheated on his then-wife, Elin Nordgren, while he was on the road playing on the PGA Tour. When the scandal came out, Tiger saw some of his top sponsors drop him from their portfolio, with GIllette being one of them. Fortunately for Woods, his biggest sponsor, Nike, stuck with him through the tough times.
Kobe Bryant also saw several of his endorsers drop him from their portfolios because of the sexual abuse allegations that surrounded Bryant. The poor public conduct, and the situations that these individuals put themselves in are the reasons that morality clauses exist in contractual agreements in professional sports. It provides teams, leagues, and sponsors with a way out of a contract that reflects themselves in a negative light.
However, is there a way that players can opt out of a contract if say, a league or their team behaves in a way that is unacceptable in the eyes of the player? Is there a way that the morality clause can be reversed? The answer is yes, but it's a more difficult process. These types of agreements would have to be implemented into the Collective Bargaining Agreements of the corresponding leagues before they can be implemented into the contract for individual players. We have yet to see these implemented in the sporting world, but they may be on the horizon with the recent actions of Donald Sterling last year with the Los Angeles Clippers.
As things progress in sports, and more issues arise, don't be surprised to see reverse morality clauses work their way into player agreements in the near future.
- T.B.