The second season of HBO’s Ballers — starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson — will premiere this Sunday. And if you believe executive producer Mark Wahlberg, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell probably isn’t too thrilled about it.
Wahlberg went on ESPN’s Mike & Mike Saturday morning to talk about the show and casually revealed that Goodell called him last year and told him “you can’t do this.”
“The first season of the show, the only calls I was getting were from guys like Roger Goodell saying, “You can’t do this,” and various owners in the league too. We were saying it’s actually a good thing for the league and the players because … with the crazy stuff and the financial side of things and hopefully get them to realize that they have to be careful with their money. Now you get a lot of guys wanting to do it.”
It wasn’t exactly specified what was meant by “this,” but we’d have to assume Goodell wasn’t pleased about all the drugs, sex, and fratty behavior depicted in a show about the NFL, a notoriously straight-laced and morality-first institution.
Now, we have to wonder whether or not Wahlberg was just making this up to garner press and hype for the new season, especially because we’ve never known Goodell to overstep his authority or be an overly-controlling leader.
But, as it turns out, Wahlberg could do “this.” And he did do it, which must have been a huge bummer for Goodell. Turns out you can’t keep entertainers from creating entertainment, even if you think the product isn’t a great look for your brand. Sad!
(Actually, this isn’t exactly true. The NFL successfully managed to put the kibosh on ESPN’s Playmakers years ago, but that was because the league had a broadcast deal with the network and undoubtedly threatened to pull that sh*t off the table. No such deal with HBO exists.)
Even worse for Goodell is the fact that several more NFL players are scheduled to make cameos on this season of Ballers.
“We want to make sure the key is to make it as authentic as possible no matter how outrageous it gets. We always surround ourselves with real guys. Because the show is so accurate, that’s why you get guys like Ndamukong Suh, Terrell Suggs is on the show as well this year, Jarvis Landry, you got a lot of guys and not to mention countless Patriots. I can’t say who it is or what they’re doing yet because it’s a surprise and I don’t want to spoil the finale, but guys know that we make sure that we make it real.”
So not only can’t the commish halt the show’s production, he also can’t even stop his own employees from appearing on it. So sad!
Maybe we’ve finally got an explanation for why Goodell went so hard after Wahlberg’s boy Tom Brady, though. At least he won that one.
