The N.F.L. players association hopes to address [the recent rash in player drunk driving] in a new partnership it has formed with the technology firm Uber, which makes a smartphone app that acts as a digital dispatcher for people looking for a taxi or a car service.
[…]
Because Uber relies on G.P.S., players will not need to know the precise address of their location to get a ride home.
Further proof that there’s drunk, and then there’s drunk.
Players will be offered $200 in credits as an inducement to use the service, which begins next week.
Let’s all take a moment to recall that most active players in the NFL are a millionaire or should be in short order; I believe the lowest possible salary for a non-practice squad rookie player is currently ~$405,000 a year. This rises to over $800k/yr once you have put in any kind of service in the league beyond one season. Let’s face it: most, if not all of them could easily afford to employ a full-time driver. When you’ve already got a ready-made entourage of hangers-on, as seemingly all NFL players do, why not just pay one of them not to drink and do all the driving? Hell, pay two and they can take turns with the not-drinking. Who could refuse $60k/yr with benefits to haul Tim Tebow around between bars and shady “motels”? ‘Merica needs jobs, after all.
Lemkin 