THINK PROGRESS: …There have been dire predictions about the NFL’s future. Before the Super Bowl last year, then-Baltimore Ravens safety Bernard Pollard predicted that the league would be dead in 30 years. There are fears that parents will stop letting their children play the game, that football will die a slow death once we learn just how dangerous it is. Maybe, through it all, football fans have bargained with themselves: the game is dangerous, the dangers can’t be removed, and we’re going to ignore it all and enjoy it until the day those dangers don’t let us consciously enjoy it anymore.
But that day seems a long way off. This is our game more than any other, and no matter who’s playing, no matter how good they are, people will watch. That’s not to say those dire predictions about football should or need to come true. But the less fans care about concussions and injuries and the general dangers of the game, the less incentive the NFL and its players have to do anything about it. We have a lot to learn about the specific risks football poses to the human brain, and maybe we’ll learn something that will make us sit up and take notice. Monday night, though, is more evidence that what we know about football’s impact on players’ brains isn’t having an impact on the brains of fans. League of Denial never had a chance, not because the NFL needed to deny its content but because the majority of NFL fans just don’t seem to care… (more)
EDITOR: Will football go the way of boxing?
A half century ago boxing was a sport in which male youths participated, in neighborhood clubs, intercollegiate competition, Golden Gloves competition (then widely publicized) and once a week professional fight nights in local arenas. (The local clubs are well portrayed in “Rocky”, the movie.)
As the public became more aware of health and disfigurement considerations, it ceased to be a ‘gentlemanly’ sport and instead became the path for underprivileged youth to earn money and attempt to climb to fame and prosperity.
Boxers were modern day Roman gladiators, except in general they survived the combat even if their brains were badly damaged and lives shortened.
Is this to be the future route of professional football?
Will the current and future generations of suburban parents choose soccer, track, martial arts and lacrosse for their youngsters with ‘little league’ football teams shrinking in number and locations?
Will there be a dual academic track at major universities for those youngsters who seek a scholarship, for some, who aspire up to the professional leagues with their vast remunerations?
Will colleges and some universities drop football from their sports program as lack of players, pressures and liability exposures mount?
Will public interest plummet as the sport no longer represents ‘us’ and our fantasies but becomes games between ‘them’ with whom we do not identify?
Who is the heavyweight boxing champion of the world? Who cares?
