5 ms·

The problem that I see with the NFL is that they are essentially a monopoly on American Football. As a fan, I don't really have any choices. I detest many thin

by cheeze 10y ago

The problem that I see with the NFL is that they are essentially a monopoly on American Football. As a fan, I don't really have any choices. I detest many things that the NFL does, can't believe some of the players are allowed to play the game after what they do outside of work, etc. yet I have no option if I want to watch football. Combine this with the fact that NFL football is culturally ingrained in many peoples lives and you end up with a behemoth that can't be stopped. Even if I wanted to boycott the NFL (more than I do as-is), the game will be on at literally every food/drink establishment I enter, people will be talking about it (and playing fantasy) at work, and on Thanksgiving, my family is going to watch football, that's just how it is. I really wish there was some alternative. I would gladly support a league of slightly worse players if it wasn't as scummy as the NFL has proven itself to be.

some-guy 10y ago
The real question is: if this information about the link between health and playing football becomes more widespread, will people stop playing? People certainly wouldn't stop watching due to the culture that you describe, but I assume that young would-be players may second-guess their decisions. The smaller the talent pool of a sport, the less competitive and skillful it becomes. I'm not convinced that the NFL as an organization would completely suffer though.
- chc 10y ago
  I don't think an up-and-comer aiming for a career in the NFL is someone who really cares about the odds or the downsides of that choice. The most likely outcome of that career path is failure even if you don't get injured.
  - brndn 10y ago
    There have been a few recent cases of NFL players retiring early due to the long-term health concerns of concussions, but it's certainly not common.
- ProAm 10y ago
  The minute there is a successful lawsuit at the high school or collegiate level where the school must pay 1 million plus you will start to see a change. I would guess high schools will drop the sport, and colleges will need to do something to either compensate players or also drop the sport. No one wants that much financial liability on their ledger.
- Thriptic 10y ago
  The biggest risk to the NFL isn't young players finding the game dangerous, but their concerned moms. If the middle school and high school programs die off from parental concern then the NFL is doomed.
powera 10y ago
There is high school football, college football, the Arena league, soccer. The NFL is by no means "a monopoly on football". It is a monopoly on televised football on Sundays, I suppose. Which isn't really a monopoly at all.
- forrestthewoods 10y ago
  It's a monopoly on professional football. The players association has even filed lawsuits with respect to collusion and anti-trust.
r00fus 10y ago
> I would gladly support a league of slightly worse players if it wasn't as scummy as the NFL has proven itself to be. Isn't this what the USFL and XFL were intended to be? Even if the other league were to focus on niches (like indoor football). I don't see how this changes without some anti-trust kind of oversight by a higher authority than the already profit-focused (with the consequential ethically blinders) NFL.
- karmelapple 10y ago
  College football, although it feeds the NFL, still has some rules in place that reduce some of the bad behavior. Of course, there's plenty of problems there, too, but these days I feel much less guilty cheering for a university team than for a pro team.
  - askldfhjkasfhd 10y ago
    I disagree. At least in the NFL, players are making (incredibly good) money. In the NCAA, so many "student"-athletes are taken advantage of much more than NFL players.
    - newjersey 10y ago
      I absolutely agree. The situation would be different if the coaches/college administrators didn't make so much money. I still wonder: would it break any laws for a university system to institute a pay cap across the board?
      - askldfhjkasfhd 10y ago
        Let's not forget the college itself is making an unhealthy amount of money. It's not just the personnel, it's the universities. I attended Vanderbilt and was incredibly proud to see then-Chancellor Gee actually eliminated teh athletic department. He believed the department had too much power because of it's revenue generating capabilities, and the only way around that was elimination.
  - 10y ago
karmajunkie 10y ago
I imagine there were some very progressively-minded patricians in ancient Rome saying much the same thing about gladiators in the coliseum.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  I wonder, but I doubt it. Gladiator stuff originated as funerary ritual. So being religious, there's pretty much already a monopoly.
balls187 10y ago
At the same time, there are a lot of really GREAT NFL players who do great things for their communities. Surely if a few shitheads spoil the NFL for you, the many more that are perennial nominees for the Walter Payton Player Award should make it easier to support.
joshkpeterson 10y ago
You're welcome to watch another sport. There's plenty of good ones, you might not miss football.
mikestew 10y ago
The "as a fan" part makes my solution difficult. Me, I just don't pay attention at all partly out of the issues you mention (to me, it's ethically along the lines of watching gladiators in ancient Rome; YMMV), and also because I just don't find it interesting. It does make me a little out of touch, for instance a coworker on Slack compared the gait of someone in the office to "Marshawn". I thought they misspelled "marshmallow". Oooooh, that explains those "beast mode" stickers that never made any sense until now. I did, however, kind of go through the same thing with pro cycling (and cycling in general) once it turned out that, by my assessment, the whole sport was full of PEDs top-to-bottom. I just quit watching, and watch other sports like MotoGP. And you know what? I don't need to watch paid professionals spin their legs in circles. Maybe you don't need to watch 300 lb. men run into each other as hard as they can. Oh, you used to play football, hence your interest? I used to be a next-stop-is-a-pro-contract bike racer. Regional-level race official once the legs got old and the dreams of a pro contract had long since died. That's a sunk cost, and the whole thing disgusted me enough to just quit paying attention. You won't right any wrongs by not watching football, make no mistake. But at some point one needs to weigh whether "being a fan" is more important than not participating in a part of popular culture that has aspects that you "detest".
hoorayimhelping 10y ago
College football is a great alternative, as is the NHL. The NHL doesn't seem to have the same kind of conduct or injury problems that the NFL does. NCAA football isn't as tight or disciplined as the NFL, but the variance in skill level leads to some really exciting moments, and the passion and excitement really comes through most broadcasts. Way more teams means way more football.
- washadjeffmad 10y ago
  College aged adults aren't immune to the long term effects of repeated head trauma. Unreported injuries among younger players may even be worse because of lying to stay in the game or trying to go all out to get noticed and win that lottery so many poor, talented kids buy into. But you don't see what happens after the years of them hurting themselves; no one follows and reports on the has beens who never made it, the ones who failed on the road the stardom. Football is dangerous to long term brain health as long as people are impacting at any force with their heads and spines. There's more to the game than brute collisions and take downs, but it needs a rules update for it to be on the right side of modern medical science in the 21st century. The only reasons not to are to protect the feelings of everyone who's been rooting on the pain and to shield the heads (how funny) from liability and litigation against their investments. If they admit the way it's being played hurts people and damages their brains, it'll be a shitstorm of guilt and blame. Parents, coaches, and fans all over are going to blame themselves for pushing their and other people's kids into getting late life brain damage for some local fame and and viewing pleasure. Right now, someone is running damage control in the news saying reported concussions are higher for every sport compared to football-- emphasis on reported. No one is writing it down because it's just a "part of the game" unless they get knocked out or seize and EMS is called. If you're still on your feet and a smelling salt[1] gets your eyes focused, you're not concussed, you just need to toughen up. I wish I were exaggerating. [1] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6_QhPICfavwJ:escholarship.org/uc/item/7qq7b12k.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

by cheeze 10y ago

some-guy 10y ago

The real question is: if this information about the link between health and playing football becomes more widespread, will people stop playing? People certainly wouldn't stop watching due to the culture that you describe, but I assume that young would-be players may second-guess their decisions. The smaller the talent pool of a sport, the less competitive and skillful it becomes. I'm not convinced that the NFL as an organization would completely suffer though.

chc 10y ago
I don't think an up-and-comer aiming for a career in the NFL is someone who really cares about the odds or the downsides of that choice. The most likely outcome of that career path is failure even if you don't get injured.
- brndn 10y ago
  There have been a few recent cases of NFL players retiring early due to the long-term health concerns of concussions, but it's certainly not common.
ProAm 10y ago
The minute there is a successful lawsuit at the high school or collegiate level where the school must pay 1 million plus you will start to see a change. I would guess high schools will drop the sport, and colleges will need to do something to either compensate players or also drop the sport. No one wants that much financial liability on their ledger.
Thriptic 10y ago
The biggest risk to the NFL isn't young players finding the game dangerous, but their concerned moms. If the middle school and high school programs die off from parental concern then the NFL is doomed.

powera 10y ago

There is high school football, college football, the Arena league, soccer. The NFL is by no means "a monopoly on football". It is a monopoly on televised football on Sundays, I suppose. Which isn't really a monopoly at all.

forrestthewoods 10y ago
It's a monopoly on professional football. The players association has even filed lawsuits with respect to collusion and anti-trust.

r00fus 10y ago

> I would gladly support a league of slightly worse players if it wasn't as scummy as the NFL has proven itself to be. Isn't this what the USFL and XFL were intended to be? Even if the other league were to focus on niches (like indoor football). I don't see how this changes without some anti-trust kind of oversight by a higher authority than the already profit-focused (with the consequential ethically blinders) NFL.

karmelapple 10y ago
College football, although it feeds the NFL, still has some rules in place that reduce some of the bad behavior. Of course, there's plenty of problems there, too, but these days I feel much less guilty cheering for a university team than for a pro team.
- askldfhjkasfhd 10y ago
  I disagree. At least in the NFL, players are making (incredibly good) money. In the NCAA, so many "student"-athletes are taken advantage of much more than NFL players.
  - newjersey 10y ago
    I absolutely agree. The situation would be different if the coaches/college administrators didn't make so much money. I still wonder: would it break any laws for a university system to institute a pay cap across the board?
    - askldfhjkasfhd 10y ago
      Let's not forget the college itself is making an unhealthy amount of money. It's not just the personnel, it's the universities. I attended Vanderbilt and was incredibly proud to see then-Chancellor Gee actually eliminated teh athletic department. He believed the department had too much power because of it's revenue generating capabilities, and the only way around that was elimination.
- 10y ago

karmajunkie 10y ago

I imagine there were some very progressively-minded patricians in ancient Rome saying much the same thing about gladiators in the coliseum.

ArkyBeagle 10y ago
I wonder, but I doubt it. Gladiator stuff originated as funerary ritual. So being religious, there's pretty much already a monopoly.

balls187 10y ago

At the same time, there are a lot of really GREAT NFL players who do great things for their communities. Surely if a few shitheads spoil the NFL for you, the many more that are perennial nominees for the Walter Payton Player Award should make it easier to support.

joshkpeterson 10y ago

You're welcome to watch another sport. There's plenty of good ones, you might not miss football.

mikestew 10y ago

The "as a fan" part makes my solution difficult. Me, I just don't pay attention at all partly out of the issues you mention (to me, it's ethically along the lines of watching gladiators in ancient Rome; YMMV), and also because I just don't find it interesting. It does make me a little out of touch, for instance a coworker on Slack compared the gait of someone in the office to "Marshawn". I thought they misspelled "marshmallow". Oooooh, that explains those "beast mode" stickers that never made any sense until now. I did, however, kind of go through the same thing with pro cycling (and cycling in general) once it turned out that, by my assessment, the whole sport was full of PEDs top-to-bottom. I just quit watching, and watch other sports like MotoGP. And you know what? I don't need to watch paid professionals spin their legs in circles. Maybe you don't need to watch 300 lb. men run into each other as hard as they can. Oh, you used to play football, hence your interest? I used to be a next-stop-is-a-pro-contract bike racer. Regional-level race official once the legs got old and the dreams of a pro contract had long since died. That's a sunk cost, and the whole thing disgusted me enough to just quit paying attention. You won't right any wrongs by not watching football, make no mistake. But at some point one needs to weigh whether "being a fan" is more important than not participating in a part of popular culture that has aspects that you "detest".

hoorayimhelping 10y ago

College football is a great alternative, as is the NHL. The NHL doesn't seem to have the same kind of conduct or injury problems that the NFL does. NCAA football isn't as tight or disciplined as the NFL, but the variance in skill level leads to some really exciting moments, and the passion and excitement really comes through most broadcasts. Way more teams means way more football.

washadjeffmad 10y ago
College aged adults aren't immune to the long term effects of repeated head trauma. Unreported injuries among younger players may even be worse because of lying to stay in the game or trying to go all out to get noticed and win that lottery so many poor, talented kids buy into. But you don't see what happens after the years of them hurting themselves; no one follows and reports on the has beens who never made it, the ones who failed on the road the stardom. Football is dangerous to long term brain health as long as people are impacting at any force with their heads and spines. There's more to the game than brute collisions and take downs, but it needs a rules update for it to be on the right side of modern medical science in the 21st century. The only reasons not to are to protect the feelings of everyone who's been rooting on the pain and to shield the heads (how funny) from liability and litigation against their investments. If they admit the way it's being played hurts people and damages their brains, it'll be a shitstorm of guilt and blame. Parents, coaches, and fans all over are going to blame themselves for pushing their and other people's kids into getting late life brain damage for some local fame and and viewing pleasure. Right now, someone is running damage control in the news saying reported concussions are higher for every sport compared to football-- emphasis on reported. No one is writing it down because it's just a "part of the game" unless they get knocked out or seize and EMS is called. If you're still on your feet and a smelling salt[1] gets your eyes focused, you're not concussed, you just need to toughen up. I wish I were exaggerating. [1] http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6_QhPICfavwJ:escholarship.org/uc/item/7qq7b12k.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us