Streeter: The NFL wants women to watch. But is it protecting them?

Back in high school, Shayna Keller “was a massive Ray Rice fan. Massive,” she said of the former Baltimore Ravens running back.

“He was my computer background, my phone background. I had his jersey,” she said.

But when shocking video of the star attacking his then-fiancée, Janay Palmer, in a casino elevator was released in 2014, “his jersey went to the back of the closet, never to be worn again.”

So Keller, a Rockville native who now lives in New Hampshire, picked a new favorite — nice-guy kicker Justin Tucker. Uh-oh! In 2025, allegations of sexually inappropriate behavior with a series of area massage therapists came to light.

“So I put that jersey next to Ray Rice right in the back,” Keller said, sighing.

The league has a problem with domestic violence and sexual misconduct at the same time it’s openly courting women fans. A 2025 USA Today story reported that the NFL estimated that women made up 47% of its audience, and a Variety story that year maintained that the league got a bump in women viewers after Taylor Swift started showing up to watch her now-husband, Travis Kelce, play for the Kansas City Chiefs.

The NFL, for its part, has made significant efforts to establish education protocols for players and other employees since the Rice incident and has formalized criteria for investigating allegations of domestic or sexual violence and, when appropriate, imposing discipline, including suspension or even banishment from the league.

“We don’t want fans to say we are not committed. Oh, yes we are,” said Anna Isaacson, the NFL’s senior vice president of social responsibility. “The work started in 2014 and continues to this day. Unfortunately incidents continue to happen across sports and beyond. Our work has not slowed down or pivoted.”

But if the perception of fans is that more should be done, especially from the women they hope to attract, that’s a problem.

“It’s a horrible issue. It’s the worst issue,” said Tierra Taylor, of Middle River, who goes to every Ravens home game, plus two away games a year. She noted that the NFL makes an effort to highlight causes such as cancer — players wear pink jerseys during October to highlight breast cancer awareness. “These same women who have boobs also don’t wanna get hit,” she said.

Indeed. Look, I know how important football is to fans. My late husband considered skipping my birthday party because of the NFL draft. It was a whole thing.

Rice, who has repeatedly admitted that his behavior was wrong, was suspended indefinitely, although that suspension was overturned on appeal. Tucker, who has denied wrongdoing, was released by the Ravens and later suspended by the NFL. They are not the only Ravens who have faced similar accusations; Terrell Suggs is another.

Now, wide receiver Rashod Bateman faces charges of misdemeanor family violence, along with reckless conduct and property damage, over an alleged altercation with his partner in Georgia. She later recanted her allegation that Bateman physically harmed her. Bateman has declined to comment on the particulars of the case, citing the ongoing legal proceedings.

And they’re far from the only NFL players who’ve faced similar accusations. Since 2014, the year the league specifically enhanced its focus on domestic violence and education, chief NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy said that 53 players have been suspended after accusations related to domestic and sexual violence. He also said that a number of players who were arrested during that time had their charges dropped.

Rice and Tucker did not respond to requests for comment.

Owings Mills resident and Ravens fan Sarah Hedges noted that Palmer and Rice are now married and that Rice has spoken out against domestic violence in the decade since his one reported incident. “I’ve had mixed feelings, but he’s done so much good for the community.”

The league offers a series of courses for players and staff on domestic violence and sexual assault. But what’s most telling to me is how the NFL doles out punishment. It’s not always enough. Rice was initially suspended for just two games, but after public backlash, the NFL made the suspension indefinite; an arbitrator later overturned that decision. The NFL took nearly five months to hand down a 10-game suspension to Tucker, whom the Ravens had already released.

“Like anything else in this country, women are not prioritized, in terms of how we are protected, especially in domestic violence situations,” said Hedges, a member of a women’s Ravens Facebook group.

The NFL disagrees. The league’s response, Isaacson said, is to be a leading voice in this space, not just for its players and employees but also in the communities where its teams are based and where the Super Bowl takes place each year. The organization is the largest corporate funder of domestic violence work in the U.S. and mandates annual education, she said.

McCarthy added that Tucker was never charged. “We spoke to relevant witnesses and took definitive, decisive action,” he said. And Bateman’s case is still under investigation.

Family therapist and Ravens fan Jasmin Sepulveda, who lives in Phoenix, Arizona, said she and her husband are season ticket holders for the NBA’s Phoenix Suns. The team recently acquired Miles Bridges, who pleaded no contest in 2022 to a felony count of injuring a child’s parent after being accused of assaulting his then-partner in front of their young children. “My husband was like, ‘You can’t root for him. He sucks,’” Sepulveda said.

But other people do root for these players, and it’s a problem. I don’t think women need to sell their tickets and take up another interest. Sometimes we make compromises. “I say that the worst thing in the world I love the most is the NFL,” Keller said.

“We as a society have a lot of things that we let slide to be entertained,” said Faith Nwachuku-Taite, of Bethesda, a fan of both the Ravens and the Washington Commanders.

It’s not enough for the fans to react if the league isn’t doing enough, said Emma Kennedy, a Ravens fan and assistant professor of Christian ethics at Villanova University outside Philadelphia.

“I could fully abstain from participation or find a way to compromise,” she said. “But I get nervous that companies have an incentive to see our behavior as what we should focus on now, rather than focus on the larger-scale pressure points on companies.”

After Rice’s arrest, the NFL instituted a baseline six-game suspension for a first offense of domestic violence and a lifetime ban for a second, with the possibility of applying for reinstatement after one year. But it shouldn’t take so much effort to do what’s right.

Hedges stopped going to games and buying NFL merchandise, but she recently subscribed to YouTube TV to watch games. “I don’t feel great. But I still love the Ravens,” she said.

See? Complicated. Meanwhile, Bateman, who still faces criminal charges despite his partner now saying her injuries were self-inflicted, isn’t saying much about the situation, citing legal issues. He’s still playing. I don’t like the optics.

“It’s like the teams are not taking it seriously until the public pushes back,” Keller said. “You think they would wonder why they keep having to put all these jerseys in the back of the closet, so to speak.”