Subway Supporting Animal Cruelty?

CptSternn

Has anyone else been following this Subway fiasco?

http://www.examiner.com/crime-in-norfolk/convicted-felon-michael-vick-given-award-by-bet-subway

Most people here are probably not familiar with Michael Vick, but he is an American footballer who just did two years of a four year sentence for animal cruelty. He ran an illegal dog fighting ring and kill dozens of dogs himself, not to mention the many others his mates did away with over the years.

He just got out of prison and Subway gave him the 'sportsman of the year' award.

Now, Subway claims they sponsored the event therefore they themselves did not pick him to be the winner, the judges did, but they stand by the judges and in my opinion thats the same thing.

The fact they are not willing to speak out about this or condem this type of behaviour is just as deplorable as engaging in it themselves. I actually emailed their corporate office about this and got this canned response:

'Hello,

The BET Awards honor the achievements of African-Americans in entertainment, sports and other fields. As sponsors of the sportsman and sportswoman of the year award, we had no control over BET's nominees and recipients, nor do we have a relationship with individual award recipients. We certainly do not condone the criminal activity that Mr Vick was involved in. Similarly to last year when Lebron James and Serena Williams won the awards, we found out who won at the same time as the viewers. We want to emphasize that much like any award show, BET does not allow sponsors to have any advance notice, control, or influence over the selection process.'

Again, they say it wasn't their call and again they say there isn't anything they can do, which is crap as they could make a public statement against this sort of behaviour, but have stayed eerily silence during the whole thing. What do ye think?

sendit

How is this a consumer issue? Also how are Subway Supporting Animal Cruelty?

Cabaal

Its not a consumer issue tbh,

However subways argument is a cop-out, like any sponsor they can remove themselves from the event if it goes against what they want to be associated with.

An example of this is the sponsor of celebrity big brother a few years back who stopped sponsoring the show after that racist remarks incident.

I'd imagine Subway won't change their position unless there is a public backlash and then they'll back out of sponsoring the event

desertcircus

Subway are in a pretty awkward position. On one side there's this, and on the other side there's the option of ceasing sponsorship - and the risk of it seeming like a crass corporation telling the black community they got it wrong and to choose a better black person next time.

Vick is a scumbag, but it's not that simple for Subway.

neilthefunkeone

He did have a pretty amazing season though!! They gave him sportsman of the year.. Not animal carer of the year...

Cabaal

neilthefunkeone wrote: »

He did have a pretty amazing season though!! They gave him sportsman of the year.. Not animal carer of the year...

True however as I'm sure you'll agree just from reading about politics in Ireland.

People won't always consider somebody a great person when they f*ck up with something us, there's many politicians that fit into such a situation but the general public would never think they are great.

It basically applys to anybody thats in the public eye

maxer68

Cabaal wrote: »

However subways argument is a cop-out, like any sponsor they can remove themselves from the event if it goes against what they want to be associated with.

I'd say the legal issues involved with that could be huge - it is the USA! - They'd sue you for looking the worng way if they could!

Even if they said that they will not be associated with it next year could be conscrued that they are damaging the reputation of the awards and a legal case would follow.

Yes, they picked the wrong event to sponsor, but htey have no say in who the winner is and they just have to bite their lip and learn from it.

ShooterSF

Is this not the important line "We certainly do not condone the criminal activity that Mr Vick was involved in."?

dudara

This is not a Consumer Issue - Moved to Animals & Pet Issues

And additionally, the man has done his time. Unless he reoffends, I'm inclined to give him a break.

dudara

mikemac

Michael Vick served his time and was granted early release.
He has worked hard and is now even better then he was before the prison sentance.

Has spoken out many times on what happened in the past and even gave a speech to children in Baltimore last week!

For his amazing season, he's been awarded Sportsman of the Year Award according to the Examiner.
He deserved it for what happened on the field, that is what he was judged on

CptSternn wrote: »

He just got out of prison and Subway gave him the 'sportsman of the year' award.

He didn't just get out of prison, he's been out for almost two years!

tallaghtoutlaws

Just look over on the Americn Football forum and you will see I don't like Michael Vick as mikemac said the chap served his time and had an outstanding comeback in the NFL in the season gone.

The NFL chose to give him a second chance in 2009 and since then he has seemingly turned his life around and who are we to judge him now. He won a sportsman award and has kept his nose clean for the last 2 years after serving time for the crime he committed.

He made a mistake, He served time for his mistake and he has now cleaned himself up. And in my eyes Subway are not condoning anything other than a sports award that a chap rightly deserved.

jack presley

He's been working quite closely with the Humane Society (http://www.humanesociety.org/) since he got out and as someone else said, he regularly gives talks to inner city kids (where dog fighting is a big problem apparently) about his mistakes and how it was wrong etc. to get involved so I think he deserves a second chance.

The biggest irony of this whole story is that when he went to jail he lost all his money and had to declare bankruptcy and sell the house where all this happened and it was bought by an animal charity who intend are using it as a rehabilitation centre for chained dogs.

And although a 4 year sentence might give the impression that America is hard on animal cruelty cases and wouldn't it be great if the same was the case over here, unfortunately the majority of the sentence relates to the fact that he financed the operation which operated across state lines so it became a federal racketeering case more than a cruelty case.

CptSternn

jack presley wrote: »

And although a 4 year sentence might give the impression that America is hard on animal cruelty cases and wouldn't it be great if the same was the case over here, unfortunately the majority of the sentence relates to the fact that he financed the operation which operated across state lines so it became a federal racketeering case more than a cruelty case.

The four year sentence, of which he did only two years, was for gambling and not for animal cruelty.

MitchKoobski

Subway are in no way condoning what he did, and he did his time anyway.

They're running an award for christs sake, not killing dogs.

CptSternn

MitchKoobski wrote: »

Subway are in no way condoning what he did, and he did his time anyway.

They're running an award for christs sake, not killing dogs.

So if someone like say Larry Murphy was a good footballer no one here would have a problem with Supermac naming him as sportsman of the year?

maxer68

CptSternn wrote: »

So if someone like say Larry Murphy was a good footballer no one here would have a problem with Supermac naming him as sportsman of the year?

If Pat Mc Donagh of supermacs said it, there would be an issue, but is supermacs were the sponsor and had nothing to do with the choice, then there shouldn't be an issue with supermacs.

Same here, subway are the commercial sponsor, nothing else.

amiable

OP you have yet to show how Subway are supporting Animal Cruelty

Comparing this situation to Larry Murphy is crass IMO and a dog with a mallet up his arse can see the difference(no animal cruelty intended)

The man broke the law, served his time and has not reoffended and doesn't look likely to.

CptSternn

amiable wrote: »

OP you have yet to show how Subway are supporting Animal Cruelty

Comparing this situation to Larry Murphy is crass IMO and a dog with a mallet up his arse can see the difference(no animal cruelty intended)

The man broke the law, served his time and has not reoffended and doesn't look likely to.

Look at the current News Of The World fiasco.

Ford, Mitsubishi, Co-Op, Virgin, etc. all pulled advertising from the paper. Does it mean the companies that didn't pull their ads supported the phone hacking of child murder victims?

No, but it does say a lot about a company which doesn't seem to give a ****e about morals and places more emphasis on making money. Maybe they don't support animal cruelty per-se, but their lack of a moral conciseness about it leaves one wondering about the moral compass of their business.

Kinetic^

CptSternn wrote: »

No, but it does say a lot about a company which doesn't seem to give a ****e about morals and places more emphasis on making money. Maybe they don't support animal cruelty per-se, but their lack of a moral conciseness about it leaves one wondering about the moral compass of their business.

No it doesn't.

jack presley

Here's an update on what Michael Vick's been up to. While it doesn't make up for what he did, it shows he's heading in the right direction

http://www.cnn.com/2011/SPORT/07/19/vick.dogfight/index.html?hpt=hp_c2

Worztron

Subway sells halal meat so they clearly don't care less about animal welfare. I boycott all shops (Subway and others) which have the halal sign (either on their premises or their website).

Pumpkinseeds

I thought many American corporations had a Morality clause in their contracts? Surely if Subway have one then it would be very easy to disassociate themselves from this guy an his horrific animal abuse.

Talisman

Worztron - I'm curious what's with resurrecting dead threads?

tk123

Talisman wrote: »

Worztron - I'm curious what's with resurrecting dead threads?

+1
thanks a bunch... starving for a sub now

DBB

Time for this thread to go sleepybobos again.
Please don't wake up old threads without really good reason.
Thanks,
DBB