The Law & Order: SVU's Most Mind-Blowing Beef? Must Be The NFL
It’s much easier to sweep everything under the rug than admit to your wrongdoings.
Few modern TV shows are as enduring and powerful as those in NBC's Dick Wolf universe. The creator of Law & Order has always been concerned with telling stories that captivate viewers and inspire them to do better. Often, the stories of the episodes were inspired by real-life cases.
While the Law & Order franchise has always been the target of attacks from defenders of criminals whose cases it has brought more and more attention to, one particular spin-off has struggled the most due to the particularly sensitive nature of these cases. That is, of course, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.
Because the show focuses on crimes of a sexual nature, including molestation, sexual assault, and rape, being the center of attention for even one episode could forever tarnish the reputation of any organization.
Prone to believing everything they see on television without bothering to check the facts, SVU viewers would treat each episode as a documentary.
This attitude, though motivated by the best of intentions, caused a lot of trouble for the showrunners back in the day. One of the most unexpected rivals the former SVU boss could recall in his farewell interview with E! News was the entire National Football League.
“While the NFL was talking about how they were interested in championing victims of domestic violence, pressure was being applied for us not to do an episode about domestic violence. <...> What they are exceptionally good at is keeping on top of anything that makes them look bad,” Leight said.
Throughout its run, SVU has done a number of football-related episodes, but the one that the network and Dick Wolf probably had to fight for was Gridiron Soldier (S15E16).
The story ends with a fictional football player coming out as gay and reflects on the real-life story of college football player Michael Sam, who was at the center of NFL and media attention at the time for his own coming out. Although it had a somewhat happy ending, the league didn't seem to appreciate the segment.
If you want to re-watch the episode and judge for yourself how the story was portrayed, you can stream Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on Peacock Premium, Hulu, or fuboTV.
Source: E! News