There's a difference between a small risk of long-term injury (a risk you run in different ways if you're not doing sports, I might add), and near certain brain

There's a difference between a small risk of long-term injury (a risk you run in different ways if you're not doing sports, I might add), and near certain brain damage. Not all sports have so grim an outlook - and I bet football too could be fixed with some rules changes (e.g. I don't recall any stories of rugby having such effects, and that's at least somewhat related). Further research can probably help, but it's unwise to wait for that if the results are already sufficiently clear as is.