NFL Players Union Partners with Uber To Prevent Players Driving Drunk | Hacker News Reader

NFL Players Union Partners with Uber To Prevent Players Driving Drunk

nytimes.com

85 pointsawwstn76 comments

Uber’s service would complement an existing program run by the union in which players can summon a car by placing a phone call.

I see how using Uber is an improvement, but really, if no-one is using the existing service then I think the problem runs deeper than whether they need to talk on the phone to use it.

It's never been difficult to call a cab instead of drunk drive.

Yeah I really don't see this going anywhere, it seems more like a PR move by the NFL mated to a PR campaign from Uber.

NFL players are some of the highest-paid in any profession in the world, most of which could rent a limo for the entirety of the night whenever they go out and it wouldn't be a drop in the bucket against their earnings. But, they don't...

>NFL players are some of the highest-paid in any profession in the world, most of which could rent a limo for the entirety of the night whenever they go out and it wouldn't be a drop in the bucket against their earnings. But, they don't...

Well to be fair, a lot of players in the NFL only make it in the league for a few years if they are lucky and make closer to the league minimum. I would think a lot of software developers stand to make more money over their careers than some of these guys do.

That's to say, not everyone playing in the NFL right now stands to retire with millions of dollars in the bank, especially if they have the mentality of renting a limo everytime they go out.

I'm pretty sure most of the players don't worry about that until the cash stops rolling in...

http://www.steelersdepot.com/2011/07/2011-2014-nfl-minimum-b...

League minimum this year is $405,000. I think they can afford a cab on that wage.

What isn't considered is the thousands of players on farm teams that make 80k. However, they're generally not the ones ending up in the news (nor the ones that this benefit covers).

> What isn't considered is the thousands of players on farm teams that make 80k.

The NFL has no farm system:

> The National Football League, as of 2010, is the only one of the four major professional sports in the USA that does not have a farm system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_team#American_Football

not only doesn't the NFL have farm team, sports that do, don't typically pay 80K

http://www.bucsdugout.com/2013/1/14/3874488/minor-league-bas...

CFL/AAFL are definitely farm team systems; despite not being 'formal' farm teams, that is basically what they are.

How often do you any player start out in the CFL/AAFL and go on to become starters in the NFL. There is a handful who fall into the "undiscovered talent" category and that's it.

They are far from being a developmental league where players hone skills with the hopes of "being called up to the big leagues", like what baseball, hockey, and to a lesser extent basketball do.

>I think they can afford a cab on that wage.

Sure, most anyone making a decent salary can afford a cab in most cities.

I was just pointing out that the caricaturization of all NFL players as multi-millionaires who could afford to rent limos every time they went out is unfair and not really true for the majority of them.

Does this mean if you are drafted to an NFL team your expected (minimum) earnings would be $1.62M?

My understanding is the median household income in the US is approx. $50,000 - about 32 years' worth of work to equal the (minimum) earnings of an NFL draftee.

They're hardly struggling, even if the contract isn't renewed and they have to find another job.

NFL is actually probably the least player-lucrative major sport franchise, due to the relatively low number of games (compared to NBA and MLB) and high roster size. Minimum rookie salary is around $300,000, which sounds like a lot until you realize players are basically forced into retirement after less than ten years, face tremendous workplace risks, and don't get easily translatable skills.

There's a reason you hear so many stories about homeless former pro athletes, and its not because they're dumb jocks: the system isn't exactly tailored around long-term fiscal viability.

I agree, but with one nitpick--the minimum rookie salary is $405,000. Definitely not a lot when you're always one play away from a career ending injury. However, relatively few players actually make league minimum and rookies are signed to 4-year contracts.

To elaborate slightly on 'workplace risks,' one of the biggest ones is healthcare. Football players, for example, can damage their bodies in ways that don't show up for years, until well after all those specialty doctors and trainers are no longer available, since you're not playing ball any more.

But it is good marketing and PR. Uber's task now is to be known and accepted by the mainstream so that people feel offended when they are attacked through the legal system by entrenched interests in various jurisdictions.

Yeah, I see how it's good PR for Uber. I'm just not sure that it does anything to tackle the actual issue of NFL players driving drunk, endangering themselves and others.

One more point of outreach for the players. I'm sure some will use it.

Going a little deeper, we are talking about a 53 man roster times 32 teams, only some percentage of which drive drunk with or without the program.

How much impact does this actual issue have? What is the over/under on how many marginal drunk driving accidents the partnership with Uber will prevent per year? 10?

The primary effect will be to set up these 1500 or so celebrities as examples for how to behave when drunk. If using Uber after a bender is good enough for John Q Sportshero, then it's good enough for you. And that may make a real difference for the other 300 million of us.

It's good PR for the NFL management, too. 22 year old millionaires will always have a DUI tendency, the management just needs to be seen as doing things about it.

I'd bet this project came out of their PR firms rather than the biz dev department.

I would like to respectfully disagree. Calling a cab is a nightmare, at least in San Francisco, prior to Uber. You were put on hold for several minutes, you had to explain where you were, the driver could not show up or show up extremely late.

When you are inebriated, these steps can easily be considered overwhelming and lead to many people not wanting to go through the process.

In contrast to open phone > tap uber app > tap call cab. The difference is night and day, and I think that's why the program will succeed now when it has failed before.

The biggest upgrade is seeing where the car is. Calling a cab is basically playing the lottery in places like San Francisco, whereas with Lyft/Uber/Sidecar you get to see how far it is. It's much easier to convince yourself not to drive (if that's something drinking causes you to do) if you can see how long you will be waiting.

Calling a cab is a nightmare, at least in San Francisco, prior to Uber.

This seems to be the central issue with Uber- it has solved a San Francisco problem, and is now trying to apply the same solution everywhere.

There are a great many cities (including NFL franchise cities) where getting a cab is far from difficult. Yet players still drink and drive.

There are a great many cities (including NFL franchise cities) where getting a cab is far from difficult.

Are there? In my experience, NYC is the only city where getting a cab is easy – and even there it's only easy in one borough.

edit: Chicago is the only one I can think of that comes close, but it's still only easy to get a cab there in a limited few neighborhoods.

> NYC is the only city where getting a cab is easy

Define "easy". I've had several infuriating experiences trying to get a cab in NYC, all of which ended in me walking or taking a subway instead. NYC has a lot of cabs, but they also have a lot of cab patrons.

Not to mention many cab drivers won't venture outside of Manhattan.

I would argue it's easy to get a cab in Chicago from most parts of the city where people spend time at night. No, it's not easy to get a cab from the the West Side or Uptown at night, but that's because it doesn't need to be. The cabs follow the people.

> This seems to be the central issue with Uber- it has solved a San Francisco problem, and is now trying to apply the same solution everywhere.

Dealing with taxi dispatchers in Seattle is awful. They're rude, they don't tell you when your cab is coming, sometimes they just don't pick up.

Some taxi drivers aren't much better. They can be extremely reticent to accept credit cards, and I have been refused service before because I wanted to pay with one.

The introduction of Uber (and especially UberX) in Seattle has made deciding whether or not to drive a total no-brainer.

What make you think that the existing program was a regular cab? One would hardly describe "NFL players can call cabs" as "an existing union program where they call a phone number for a car" without intending to mislead.

The barely-described prior program could be slower than calling a cab, if it's a national call-center that then picks a city-specific service, and doesn't draw on as many providers. Clearly there have been problems with it.

And if you're drunk and out past some contractual/implied curfew, talking to strangers is harder: there's some embarrassment involved. Pushing a button in an app depersonalizes the situation, helpfully so.

According to this article (http://www.thepostgame.com/features/201304/nfl-players-worry...) the major problem is privacy - players worried that the team management could find out that they'd been drinking (and to a lesser extent, cost, and perhaps to a greater extent, stupidity. Cost will be reduced with Uber, privacy should be less of a concern, and stupidity will remain unaffected).

Note thought that the existing program for the players doesn't involve just calling any random yellow-car cab company - they have a special number and service set up.

Yes but it probably was technologically similar. Still have to know your address rather than use GPS, no ETA tracking, etc.

Calling a cab in Miami is also a shitty experience. Incidentally cab "union" is fighting uber tooth and nail here.

100% agree. Especially if the location you are at is very loud (ie bar/club), making a phone call is much more difficult than using an app.

To play devil's advocate, it's not the call-and-ride part that's difficult - it's the next day that's an actual hassle.

Depending on where you live, you need to call a cab to take you back, and depending on where that is, the cab may show up late, if at all. Then you have to hope that you car is still where you left it, and not towed or booted.

None of this excuses drunk driving, of course. The solution is to make plans, instead of just driving to the bar and assuming you'll figure out what to do later.

Dead right. Someone who plans in advance will avoid driving drunk. I typically take the bus downtown and a cab home after the buses have stopped. Somehow I don't see many NFL players doing that.

What do you do in the morning, in regards to getting to work and picking up your car?

Uber is more high-end than cabs. Hopefully this appeals to NFL players more than cabs - they get to show up in a town car.

Somehow I doubt the car service the NFL union already had set up involved the player getting in a yellow cab.

It's a black car service, the problem is privacy concerns - the players don't want management to be able to find out how late they were out and where they were.

http://www.thepostgame.com/features/201304/nfl-players-worry...

I suppose having the Player's Association set it up is meant to help the players trust the service. Still, mixing the players in with Uber's capacity – maybe even with customer pseudonyms? – could offer faster service and more anonymity than a previous program.

> It's never been difficult to call a cab instead of drunk drive.

It has, however, been difficult to wait for over an hour outside of a bar at 3am and have no cab show up. :/ Being able to see where the car actually is and that it's coming to get you is a killer feature of Uber / Lyft / Sidecar / Taxi Magic / etc.

> if no-one is using the existing service

They are using it. The article states they they have received an average of 50 calls a month for it, and that is just the service the NFLPA offers, never mind whatever each team offers.

> (...) then I think the problem runs deeper than whether they need to talk on the phone to use it.

Okay, well when you come up with a plan of execution to fix society as a whole, then we can move forward with that instead.

> It's never been difficult to call a cab instead of drunk drive.

What is your point?

I rarely use a cab... I called for a cab once and it was a horrible experience. The other person had such a thick accent I wasn't quite sure if the information was conveyed properly, after several attempts to confirm.

In the end, I said to myself, "Screw it. Just wait 5-10 minutes and call another cab." Fortunately the cab came to the right location and all was good.

The problem with a service like this for the NFL players is that a lot of them don't want their coaches and teammates to know they were out the night before, or just how wasted they are getting. So if Uber can guarantee anonymity throughout the process then I think players will be more apt to use Uber.

Basically a cab service exists everywhere, so for the players its not just the connivence but the real implications of calling a designated driver and their job. Granted drunk driving is infinitely worse, I feel like some athletes will always do what they think they can get away with.

The other problem is that you still have to decide, while drunk, that you're going to call the cab. Even if you completely intended to while sober, people are not typically known for superior decision-making while drunk.

If anonymity were the only concern players could generally trivially pay for a cab and avoid using an NFL or NFLPA-provided service. So while I'm glad that the NFL is trying to do something about drunk driving amongst the players, I don't think this is much more than PR fodder in practice.

Anonymity probably matters more to someone who is likely to be recognized by a cab driver. Especially one with a video camera in the car (most major metropolitan cab companies).

Uber, on the other hand, make a point of distinguishing their drivers from the rabble. If they can establish trust with the athletes that whether or not they are recognized, they will never be talked about, recorded, etc. it may help with the adoption of the service.

Plus, Uber have also positioned themselves as a lifestyle brand. Hailing or calling for a cab may feel like it is below the station of a professional athlete. Uber have positioned themselves to be a sort of modern, distributed chauffeur.

They are all small things, but both as a PR win, and a potential tool in the box of the NFL who are desperate to get a handle on the off-field bad-choices of their athletes, this doesn't seem like a bad thing.

This is a great pilot program. Uber is in a position to provide a vertical solution for ball clubs that uniquely identifies key sore points. Then they can expand to other profitable niches - imagine interview services for large corps where Uber knows how and when to get a candidate from building to building in a city/campus (think: Redmond/MV/Cupertino). Uber is in a much better position than random cab/limo company or possibly even the company itself - as transport is often a sore spot).

Uber can iterate/pivot flexibly, while most cab companies (and local governments) can't invest the time or effort to do this for such a small (but lucrative) population.

Perhaps the Uber app should offer something where you can "reserve" a ride at a specific location and time in the future. If you are going to be at Foo Bar drinking it up, you can say "Pick me up at 10pm". And at 9pm you get a push notification, "We will pick you up in 1 hour. [OK] [Not Yet] And then you can modify the time to get picked up, so if you decide for another pint you will still have that cab coming to get you even if your decision making is no longer good anymore.

If you want real deniability, you might want the service to include another driver that rides in with the car, drives the player's car home, puts it in park in the driveway, and then lets the player transfer back into their own car to slip it into the garage. And also some of those Russian anti-hangover pills.

It would probably be best if the other-driver also had a mask that mimicked the likeness of the player's face.

(I'm not really suggesting that it appear that the player drove their own car home to outside observers; just that it would be weird and creepy to let some stranger park your car in your garage. It's mostly about not leaving a car parked in front of a bar the next morning.)

There's a service in my city that does this for 30 or 40 bucks depending on how far they have to go. Minus the hangover pills, anyway. I always wonder what the insurance situation is, but however un(der)-insured they may be, it has to be better than the alternative.

It sounds good, but players have already had a program in place to help them. This app might help a little, but I don't think it will solve the problem.

And they can afford taxis and car services.

Football players have this "I can do anything" mentality that gets them into trouble. This mind set also makes them good football players.

The problem is the tension that exists between the employee and the employer. The employer doesn't want the employee to know what they do. The employer will use any information he can to gain an upper hand.

Players hide injuries, then pay cash to non-team doctors.

They will continue to hide their partying activities as well.

Yesss, NFL and HN on the same page! My worlds are colliding.

Anyway, I don't know if this will be good enough to solve the problem. As someone else mentioned earlier, the NFL already has a system in place for all players to get free rides at any time, no questions asked (plus a legion of fans who would bend over backwards to drive an NFL player home). I think this could be an improvement with regards to the UX and ease of use for the players, but this still may not be enough to solve the main problem.

Edit: if we want to get more in-depth as to why this might not fix the problem, look at the kind of people who become NFL players. They're often from lower-income backgrounds where sports were their one outlet for success. When you go from perpetually struggling financially and are suddenly thrust into a world where you are making millions and surrounded by adoring fans, you think you're invincible. Cops wouldn't dare to arrest a football deity would they? Unfortunately that can get to their heads and leads to situations where they choose to drunk drive instead of call a free cab.

You might like this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5002974

Yep, I remember seeing that a while ago (and you're right, I did like it). I had the CSV file saved on my desktop for a while in the hopes that I could do something fun with it, but I never did.

I tried to verify if NFL players are "often from lower-income backgrounds".

I found some data for basketball: "...most NBA players come from relatively advantaged social origins and African Americans from disadvantaged social origins have lower odds of being in the NBA than African American and white players from relatively advantaged origins"

http://irs.sagepub.com/content/47/1/43

http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/6777581/importance-athlet...

Some enterprising owner should set up an account with Uber to provide free rides for their players. It's a heck of a lot cheaper than DUIs, wrongful death lawsuits and suspensions and fines by the NFL.

Services like Uber go beyond calling a cab company because they are easy to use in a way that digitally-savvy people understand (and most NFL players are pretty good with smartphones) and the cars are nicer than cabs. In certain cities, it's easy to get a cab. You pretty much just need to stand on the corner of a street for a few minutes. In other cities, it can be a nightmare.

In those markets where getting a cab can be a huge problem, this will help a lot. And this will also help in markets where cab drivers refuse to leave the city. It's easy to get a cab in DC, but most cab drivers won't leave the city limits, which can be an issue if a player doesn't live in the city. That's something that a lot of people overlook when they say, "how hard is it to get a cab?" The real question is, "how hard is to get a cab that will take me to where I want to go in a timely manner?" That's where Uber shines.

That would get them right back to the original NFL program they had a couple years ago, which nobody used because they are concerned about the NFL/team knowing where they've been.

They didn't have to call a cab. They called a private number that provided a chauffeur with their choice of limo, Hummer, etc that will arrive within 30 minutes and take them wherever they want to go.

Do they have non-limo options and how expensive is this service? I wouldn't call arriving within 30 minutes exactly fast. You can get a cab or Uber within minutes.

Uber is an incredible service. Perhaps a system within a bar/clubs POS system would be most helpful. If your bill is over X amount then the bartender could suggest a Uber for you or have the ability to charge a Uber to your bill if you agreed. Just a thought. Also Instead of Uber preventing NFL players driving drunk. Uber should prevent players driving after games who have suffered concussions or big hits.

It's important to note this is the NFL Players Union, not the NFL. That gives it a better chance of being successful.

Whoops, thanks! I just added that. I assume eventually the mods will switch this to the NYT headline, but I didn't think it conveyed much information.

The existing programs were also under the players association, which gets rid of the issues others have mentioned about things like anonymity. It also makes questionable the various claims that this is a PR move by the NFL: These are legitimate actions by the players association to try to improve the safety, security, and careers of players.

Making the process easier (or even just "hipper") is a good thing, and pointing out that comparatively they already have a slightly harder process doesn't mean much: Such is the case with almost everything we do, making tasks slightly easier.

I wonder how long until other organizations do something similar. It'd be kind of interesting if military 24-48h passes (i.e. be drunk for that period) came with a requirement to use Uber or something like it. Drunk driving actually kills more young enlisted people than combat.

I think this is great for both Uber and the NFL. This is good PR for both, brings additional legitimacy to Uber and highlights the NFL's efforts to address this issue (at the end of the day maybe save some careers if not lives).

However, if the NFL was truly serious they would contractually require all players to install breathalyzer car starters (if you don't know search it) in their vehicles. Is that extreme? No, not in light of all the other contractual obligations NFL players/professional athletes already agree. One example is UFC fighters contracts include provisions in which they agree not to drive motorcycles.

This is a great strategic partnership even if the net value is low to the NFL.

1) The cost to uber and the NFL is basically zero. It leverages existing functionality and the NFL already pays for this kind of service.

2) The NFL gets good press about drunk driving prevention and might actually prevent a few accidents.

3) Uber gets itself in the NYTimes, top of hacker news, etc for free, exposes itself to lots of new users, and reinforces itself as a brand aligned with luxury and convenience.

This seems like a purely PR move. Not only is there nothing wrong with that, it's probably worth figuring out how other people can get national press with flimsy stories.

I see what Uber gets out of this, but what reason would the NFL Players' Union have for participating in the marketing of this? I don't remember hearing a lot about drunk-driving players in the press, so essentially the Players' Union is making it a topic of conversation.

Why?

You just haven't been reading the right press? eg: http://fansided.com/2013/08/06/nfl-eyes-stricter-dui-penalti... overview: https://www.google.com/search?q=nfl+drunk+driving+-uber

I think this only solves a few of their alcohol related problems.

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500290_162-6975132.html

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/blog/shutdown_corner/post/Police...

For all those who are trying to speculate on the benefits of this over the "existing car service" mentioned on the article, here is some actual information about it: http://www.thepostgame.com/features/201304/nfl-players-worry...

The brilliance of this move is that Uber is more high end than cabs. A lot of players like arriving in style, which leads to the returning home drunk. With Uber, you can arrive in a town car. If I were Uber, I'd make a big deal about the NFL app getting priority on the nicest cars in their fleet to try and appeal to this.

Is it more high end than the existing car service?

My first reaction? What bunch of pampered babies. If your employer has to design a service to keep you from driving home drunk, you clearly are the definition of pathetic. Miserably unable to deal with the basics of life.

Good for Uber, and I understand the want to prevent the players' safety, but seriously, that's ridiculous. The fact that this deal is in place says a lot about the maturity of professional athletes.

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