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Roethlisberger's off field issues make him less trusted
Apr 21, 2010
Roethlisberger's off field issues make him less trusted
By Aaron Kuriloff | Bloomberg
Ben Roethlisberger was suspended six games for violating the National Football League’s personal- conduct policy after being accused twice of sexual assault, the league said on its Web site.
Steelers President Art Rooney II said last week that Roethlisberger would face unspecified discipline from the team, in coordination with the league office. Rooney said at a news conference that Roethlisberger’s conduct didn’t live up to team standards and he should be punished.
Roethlisberger met last week with Commissioner Roger Goodell at the league’s headquarters on Park Avenue in New York to discuss his personal conduct, one day after prosecutors said they wouldn’t charge the 28-year-old quarterback for an alleged sexual assault on a 20-year-old college student in a Milledgeville, Georgia, bar on March 5.
Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit District Attorney Frederic Bright said “significant questions” remain about what took place that night. He said the woman involved wrote to his office that she didn’t want the matter prosecuted.
“We are not condoning Mr. Roethlisberger’s actions that night, but we don’t prosecute morals, we prosecute crimes,” Bright said at a news conference on April 12. “Something may have happened, but that’s not a conviction.”
Roethlisberger, who led the Steelers to Super Bowl victories after the 2005 and 2008 seasons, also faces a lawsuit by a woman who says he raped her in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, in 2008, according to the Associated Press. Roethlisberger has denied both allegations.
Roethlisberger’s off-field issues have made him less trusted by the public and less appealing to marketers, according to national polling by Omnicom Group Inc.’s Davie Brown Index, which marketers and advertisers use to gauge the ability of personalities to influence shoppers. His scores for trust, influence and appeal have all declined since last year.
