Marco Rubio: Domestic Violence in Sports has 'Deep Impacts Throughout Society'

In the aftermath of Ray Rice being reinstated to play in the National Football League (NFL) after being indicted for third-degree assault on his fianc, now his wife, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., talked about domestic violence and sports on Tuesday. Rubio spoke on the topic during a Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee meeting.

The NFL doesnt just play for three hours Sunday, Monday and Thursday nights, Rubio said. The NFL is a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week endeavor that actively wants Americans to admire and emulate the people it puts on the field. It wants our young people to wear and this is true of all the leagues, but again I am focused on the NFL it wants young people like my sons, and they want to, and do, to wear the same shoes, to wear their jerseys, to buy the same and use the same products. I mean, we just read a couple of weeks ago that now they regulate what earphones they can use during pregame warm-ups because the league has established a contract with one of the providers.

So this is an ongoing, 24-hour endeavor, Rubio added. It wants young people to emulate and to look up to these athletes and they do. In fact, I can tell you being involved now in youth football and this is very sad, but it is true in some instances some of the only positive male role models that many young Americans today have happen to be the professional athletes they see on Sundays or at nights on television in any of your leagues.

So I think its important to preface that, because this is not just a sport thats played on a field three hours at a time, Rubio continued, this actually has deep impacts throughout society. And there are millions of young especially young boys but young Americans who look up to these players. And whatever happens or does not happen with them has a deep impact on them. Because for many of them its the only male role model that they have in their lives, unfortunately, and in cases where people go wrong.