8 ms·

Insurance market for football evaporating, causing major threat for NFL

74 points by Osiris30 8y ago

Animats 8y ago
So the football industry now has to pay for their externalities. That's progress.
- ohithereyou 8y ago
  Now if only we could get the fossil fuel and agricultural industries to do same.
Scoundreller 8y ago
Unless you're interested in the finer details, the article is very long. Basically, the NFL should be fine, but even they may be self-insuring head trauma nowadays. For youth and school contact football programs, they are in jeopardy. Insurers are increasing premiums and/or requesting waivers for all neurological injuries. Some schools are already folding their teams. Probably with no end in sight. Where will the next generation of players come from?
- morkfromork 8y ago
  robots or VR football
- MRD85 8y ago
  As a non-American, this is something that confuses me about American culture. I see a lot of statements along the lines of "I should be able to do X if it only harms me" but people also sue for X causing them damage. If you play football then surely you accept certain risks onto yourself?
  - skookumchuck 8y ago
    You're right about the cognitive dissonance going on. Americans want the right to do whatever they want, but won't accept responsibility for their choices.
  - steveeq1 8y ago
    Yes, but lawyers don't make as much money that way.
  - jjeaff 8y ago
    Yes, and that principle is embedded in common law. For example, if you park near a baseball field and a flyball breaks your car window, you likely will have no recourse to sue anyone. Same would be true of something like football, but things change when you have an organization making money off of it that has known and may have known of the dangers for a long time and has made a concerted effort to hide the dangers. I think the long term dangers of football are still not widely known or acknowledged.
  - mcgrath_sh 8y ago
    Until roughly a decade ago, the risks of football were under-disclosed. This includes nefarious actions such as the NFL buying their way into medical journals to refute claims that football leads to brain injuries. Arguably, the 2015-16 rookie class is the first that had consequences laid out to them from Freshman in HS forward. (I believe the 2009 AFCCG is the NFL line of demarcation.) Additionally there is the question of ability to consent and duty of care for a minor playing HS football. In direct response to your question, yes, there is an ability to do dangerous things in the NFL/football, but the NFL had previously withheld/ actively withheld information about the risks from the players. This is different than the ability to knowingly consent to the danger.
  - ForHackernews 8y ago
    That answer might be fine for the NFL (and maybe even for college teams), but for high school and younger football players, it seem absurd to say "Well they accepted the risks" For good reason, we don't give children the full scope of authority to assume personal risks that we allow to adults.
  - CM30 8y ago
    100% agreed. If you take a risk and it doesn't pay off, you shouldn't be able to sue other people for your own decisions or mistakes. Played an extreme sport (like skydiving or winggliding or snowboarding or mountain climbing or anything else) and got injured? Tough, you decided to do that, and you and your family should stop something looking for someone to blame/sue because of it. Same goes for any other hobby, whether it's fishing or caving or climbing the outside of buildings for Instagram photos. You took a risk, and if it didn't pay off, tough luck. You made that decision. And this especially goes for anything illegal. Oh sure, there are exceptions for legal activities if some party did do something wrong that caused it to become more dangerous than expected (like say, telling kids to play American football without padding and helmets on ice) then maybe there may be a case that someone is to 'blame'. But if you break the law and get injured doing so, well tough luck. You did something illegal and it worked out horribly, what you'd expect? For instance, I distinctly recall cases of burglars suing because they got injured robbing some property or trespassing. That's ridiculous, and the whole idea should be immediately tossed out with 'well if you didn't break into a property you weren't supposed to be in, you wouldn't have got injured'. People should take responsibility for their own mistakes and decisions, and accept that sometimes things don't work out well and that it's merely part of life.
    - thatcat 8y ago
      Taking on a known extreme risk isn't the same as taking on an unknown risk that exists due to the negligence of others.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    ...surely you accept certain risks... TFA is largely about insurance for youth leagues. Children aren't capable of assessing and accepting certain risks. That's why we don't let them drive automobiles on the highway.
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  Where will the next generation of players come from? I'm actually perfectly okay with a sport going extinct and becoming some weird historical artifact because the world got wise to how very harmful it is to the participants in an irreversible and serious manner.
lordnacho 8y ago
Insurance is useful to spread the cost for things that are: - Rare, but predictable in a statistical sense, ie x% of people will claim for y amount, and actuarial tables say so. - Expensive to compensate. This is why we need to spread the risk. - Where's it's hard to separate risk levels of different people. If not you get adverse selection, where the average cost discourages the safer people, leaving the less safe. With the recent revelations about brain damage from tackle football, the actuaries will rightly decide that their old tables are systematically biased. More people will be allowed to claim that initially believed from the old evidence. Furthermore, you can't just up the premium to compensate, you don't know how bad it might get. There was that one study of old NFL players' brain that concluded all of them (!) had damage to their brains. You also don't have any idea what the courts will award, so you really have no clue how much to ask for. You also have to ask whether general health insurance will start asking people whether they play football. (I'm not familiar with the US system). Much like smoking, it might turn out to be a predictable high risk group, so that people in it will have to pay prohibitively more for coverage, or not get covered at all. So if all the youth players can't get insurance, you have to wonder what will happen to the professional game. Perhaps there's some major rule change necessary. I'm not sure how I'd change it to be similar but safer, something about the game seems to require tackling to be football.
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  We'd play flag football in school, where one wore a belt with flags on it attached with velcro. "Tackling" meant ripping off one of the flags. This should be coupled with fining a player for knocking others down. You can still get injured with this, but the odds of head injury should go way down. Whether this version of the game would hold the interest of fans would remain to be seen. Or one team could be given swords and the other tridents, and give the fans what they really want :-)
  - sixstringtheory 8y ago
    I remember learning a long time ago that Barry Sanders started out with flag football, which is why he became such an amazing running back. If you can evade flag-tacklers, actual tacklers are gonna have an even worse time getting you (on average). Despite the more technical nature of sport it would bring, you’re right in your final analysis–this is our modern day gladiatorial contest, we want hits.
raverbashing 8y ago
The solution seems clear: prohibit tackling in football or change the rules to discourage it (for example no heavy helmets)
- paulie_a 8y ago
  IE just shutdown the sport. I personally have no personal opinion on that. But tackling is pretty baked into the game.
  - 6nf 8y ago
    Other tackling games like rugby - do they have similar stats? I'm not familiar with the numbers but I do know lots of concussions happen in rugby too, although probably a bit less than NFL
  - raverbashing 8y ago
    I don't see UFC being "shut down" with the safety rules they have added since their beginning, so I'd say it's adaptable Rugby doesn't have as many issues it seems
    - hardlianotion 8y ago
      Not clear to me how much that has to do with lack of collected data on the issue. Head trauma is a big and growing concern within rugby, with some high-profile casualties. It is possible that we're just a few years later than American Football to raise this concern.
rwallace 8y ago
What surprises me about this is the throwaway remark suggesting soccer and hockey should be lumped in with American football. As I understand it, they are not close to being in the same category for brain injury. What's the justification for that remark?
- thewizardofaus 8y ago
  Correct. I believe the dangers with American football is the use of the helmets in particular. It allows for tackles that normally would not be possible without the attackee injuring themselves. Refer to Rugby or Australian Football for comparisons.
  - secfirstmd 8y ago
    Hmm yes American football is worse than the others but this overall problem makes me really concerned for rugby. Head injury issues and the subsequent legal exposure is only starting to become an issue taken seriously in the sport. Frankly, the sport doesn't have the money that the American football system has to be able to survive an onslaught of legal cases.
- Touche 8y ago
  There have been a number of cases of former NHL players with CTE. I'm not sure it's as many as in the NFL, but it has less focus so possibly underreported.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    ISTR many of those afflicted NHL players had been goons/enforcers, so much of their CTE could be attributed to fisticuffs. Sure, that's one of the most entertaining parts of hockey, but it's not integral to the game in any sense. In fact non-pro hockey doesn't have that at all. (If you get in a serious fight in a high school game you might get arrested, and rightly so.) It seems that the NHL could fund some studies to figure out whether this is the case. TPTB probably want to get rid of fighting anyway to attract the "cuddlier" millennial fan. (cf. NFL's offensive explosion this year due to their new "no touching the QB" rules. I'm not complaining; my team drafted the Mahomes.) If NHL had studies that blamed fighting for all their CTE, they would have an argument to present to their more "traditional" fans while changing the rules to attract the new younger fanbase they desire.
Jedi72 8y ago
Surely in terms of brain injury American football is comparable to professional boxing? If so, that sport seems to be doing right.
- bryanlarsen 8y ago
  Boxing is the canonical example of a sport in decline. It went from most popular sport in America to a minor sport today.
  - MsMowz 8y ago
    Minor in what sense? It’s still one of the largest in terms of industry revenue and viewership.
    - jessaustin 8y ago
      Pro boxing can continue as a profitable spectacle without requiring lots of "developmental" amateur participation. For decades, most boxers have been drawn from relatively disadvantaged populations (recent immigrants, minorities, etc.) who are less likely to have access to the sort of legal representation required to address CTE liability. Who would they sue anyway? Most boxing gyms are dumps that barely keep the lights on. It's interesting to imagine football going that way. The college game would probably have to disappear. (which it should do anyway because institutions of learning should not concentrate most of their energies on frivolous contests between indentured servants) High school teams might be replaced by AAU teams run by shady coaches who could never be sued. I'm not sure where they would play, however. A football field is a big investment that is always going to be attached to some deep pockets. It's not clear that football could survive in the same way that boxing survives.
tunesmith 8y ago
NFL should guarantee lifetime health coverage for anyone who plays one NFL regular season game. If that craters salaries, so be it.
- thinkcontext 8y ago
  That doesn't account for damages.
- freewilly1040 8y ago
  They should do this, though as the article demonstrates good luck finding a carrier to buy it from
  - nradov 8y ago
    The NFL doesn't need a carrier. They can self insure and contract with a health insurer to just do the claims administration.
kingkawn 8y ago
From public health perspective do not underestimate the importance of gladiatorial sports in channeling society-wide aggressive impulses
- hcho 8y ago
  I'd like to see some data on that.
russfink 8y ago
Why is this on HN?
- lukeqsee 8y ago
  Because it's interesting to the HN users; I know I found it interesting a few days ago when I read it. HN isn't just about tech, startups, and the ilk. :)

74 points by Osiris30 8y ago

Animats 8y ago

So the football industry now has to pay for their externalities. That's progress.

ohithereyou 8y ago
Now if only we could get the fossil fuel and agricultural industries to do same.

Scoundreller 8y ago

Unless you're interested in the finer details, the article is very long. Basically, the NFL should be fine, but even they may be self-insuring head trauma nowadays. For youth and school contact football programs, they are in jeopardy. Insurers are increasing premiums and/or requesting waivers for all neurological injuries. Some schools are already folding their teams. Probably with no end in sight. Where will the next generation of players come from?

morkfromork 8y ago
robots or VR football
MRD85 8y ago
As a non-American, this is something that confuses me about American culture. I see a lot of statements along the lines of "I should be able to do X if it only harms me" but people also sue for X causing them damage. If you play football then surely you accept certain risks onto yourself?
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  You're right about the cognitive dissonance going on. Americans want the right to do whatever they want, but won't accept responsibility for their choices.
- steveeq1 8y ago
  Yes, but lawyers don't make as much money that way.
- jjeaff 8y ago
  Yes, and that principle is embedded in common law. For example, if you park near a baseball field and a flyball breaks your car window, you likely will have no recourse to sue anyone. Same would be true of something like football, but things change when you have an organization making money off of it that has known and may have known of the dangers for a long time and has made a concerted effort to hide the dangers. I think the long term dangers of football are still not widely known or acknowledged.
- mcgrath_sh 8y ago
  Until roughly a decade ago, the risks of football were under-disclosed. This includes nefarious actions such as the NFL buying their way into medical journals to refute claims that football leads to brain injuries. Arguably, the 2015-16 rookie class is the first that had consequences laid out to them from Freshman in HS forward. (I believe the 2009 AFCCG is the NFL line of demarcation.) Additionally there is the question of ability to consent and duty of care for a minor playing HS football. In direct response to your question, yes, there is an ability to do dangerous things in the NFL/football, but the NFL had previously withheld/ actively withheld information about the risks from the players. This is different than the ability to knowingly consent to the danger.
- ForHackernews 8y ago
  That answer might be fine for the NFL (and maybe even for college teams), but for high school and younger football players, it seem absurd to say "Well they accepted the risks" For good reason, we don't give children the full scope of authority to assume personal risks that we allow to adults.
- CM30 8y ago
  100% agreed. If you take a risk and it doesn't pay off, you shouldn't be able to sue other people for your own decisions or mistakes. Played an extreme sport (like skydiving or winggliding or snowboarding or mountain climbing or anything else) and got injured? Tough, you decided to do that, and you and your family should stop something looking for someone to blame/sue because of it. Same goes for any other hobby, whether it's fishing or caving or climbing the outside of buildings for Instagram photos. You took a risk, and if it didn't pay off, tough luck. You made that decision. And this especially goes for anything illegal. Oh sure, there are exceptions for legal activities if some party did do something wrong that caused it to become more dangerous than expected (like say, telling kids to play American football without padding and helmets on ice) then maybe there may be a case that someone is to 'blame'. But if you break the law and get injured doing so, well tough luck. You did something illegal and it worked out horribly, what you'd expect? For instance, I distinctly recall cases of burglars suing because they got injured robbing some property or trespassing. That's ridiculous, and the whole idea should be immediately tossed out with 'well if you didn't break into a property you weren't supposed to be in, you wouldn't have got injured'. People should take responsibility for their own mistakes and decisions, and accept that sometimes things don't work out well and that it's merely part of life.
  - thatcat 8y ago
    Taking on a known extreme risk isn't the same as taking on an unknown risk that exists due to the negligence of others.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  ...surely you accept certain risks... TFA is largely about insurance for youth leagues. Children aren't capable of assessing and accepting certain risks. That's why we don't let them drive automobiles on the highway.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
Where will the next generation of players come from? I'm actually perfectly okay with a sport going extinct and becoming some weird historical artifact because the world got wise to how very harmful it is to the participants in an irreversible and serious manner.

lordnacho 8y ago

Insurance is useful to spread the cost for things that are: - Rare, but predictable in a statistical sense, ie x% of people will claim for y amount, and actuarial tables say so. - Expensive to compensate. This is why we need to spread the risk. - Where's it's hard to separate risk levels of different people. If not you get adverse selection, where the average cost discourages the safer people, leaving the less safe. With the recent revelations about brain damage from tackle football, the actuaries will rightly decide that their old tables are systematically biased. More people will be allowed to claim that initially believed from the old evidence. Furthermore, you can't just up the premium to compensate, you don't know how bad it might get. There was that one study of old NFL players' brain that concluded all of them (!) had damage to their brains. You also don't have any idea what the courts will award, so you really have no clue how much to ask for. You also have to ask whether general health insurance will start asking people whether they play football. (I'm not familiar with the US system). Much like smoking, it might turn out to be a predictable high risk group, so that people in it will have to pay prohibitively more for coverage, or not get covered at all. So if all the youth players can't get insurance, you have to wonder what will happen to the professional game. Perhaps there's some major rule change necessary. I'm not sure how I'd change it to be similar but safer, something about the game seems to require tackling to be football.

skookumchuck 8y ago
We'd play flag football in school, where one wore a belt with flags on it attached with velcro. "Tackling" meant ripping off one of the flags. This should be coupled with fining a player for knocking others down. You can still get injured with this, but the odds of head injury should go way down. Whether this version of the game would hold the interest of fans would remain to be seen. Or one team could be given swords and the other tridents, and give the fans what they really want :-)
- sixstringtheory 8y ago
  I remember learning a long time ago that Barry Sanders started out with flag football, which is why he became such an amazing running back. If you can evade flag-tacklers, actual tacklers are gonna have an even worse time getting you (on average). Despite the more technical nature of sport it would bring, you’re right in your final analysis–this is our modern day gladiatorial contest, we want hits.

raverbashing 8y ago

The solution seems clear: prohibit tackling in football or change the rules to discourage it (for example no heavy helmets)

paulie_a 8y ago
IE just shutdown the sport. I personally have no personal opinion on that. But tackling is pretty baked into the game.
- 6nf 8y ago
  Other tackling games like rugby - do they have similar stats? I'm not familiar with the numbers but I do know lots of concussions happen in rugby too, although probably a bit less than NFL
- raverbashing 8y ago
  I don't see UFC being "shut down" with the safety rules they have added since their beginning, so I'd say it's adaptable Rugby doesn't have as many issues it seems
  - hardlianotion 8y ago
    Not clear to me how much that has to do with lack of collected data on the issue. Head trauma is a big and growing concern within rugby, with some high-profile casualties. It is possible that we're just a few years later than American Football to raise this concern.

rwallace 8y ago

What surprises me about this is the throwaway remark suggesting soccer and hockey should be lumped in with American football. As I understand it, they are not close to being in the same category for brain injury. What's the justification for that remark?

thewizardofaus 8y ago
Correct. I believe the dangers with American football is the use of the helmets in particular. It allows for tackles that normally would not be possible without the attackee injuring themselves. Refer to Rugby or Australian Football for comparisons.
- secfirstmd 8y ago
  Hmm yes American football is worse than the others but this overall problem makes me really concerned for rugby. Head injury issues and the subsequent legal exposure is only starting to become an issue taken seriously in the sport. Frankly, the sport doesn't have the money that the American football system has to be able to survive an onslaught of legal cases.
Touche 8y ago
There have been a number of cases of former NHL players with CTE. I'm not sure it's as many as in the NFL, but it has less focus so possibly underreported.
- jessaustin 8y ago
  ISTR many of those afflicted NHL players had been goons/enforcers, so much of their CTE could be attributed to fisticuffs. Sure, that's one of the most entertaining parts of hockey, but it's not integral to the game in any sense. In fact non-pro hockey doesn't have that at all. (If you get in a serious fight in a high school game you might get arrested, and rightly so.) It seems that the NHL could fund some studies to figure out whether this is the case. TPTB probably want to get rid of fighting anyway to attract the "cuddlier" millennial fan. (cf. NFL's offensive explosion this year due to their new "no touching the QB" rules. I'm not complaining; my team drafted the Mahomes.) If NHL had studies that blamed fighting for all their CTE, they would have an argument to present to their more "traditional" fans while changing the rules to attract the new younger fanbase they desire.

Jedi72 8y ago

Surely in terms of brain injury American football is comparable to professional boxing? If so, that sport seems to be doing right.

bryanlarsen 8y ago
Boxing is the canonical example of a sport in decline. It went from most popular sport in America to a minor sport today.
- MsMowz 8y ago
  Minor in what sense? It’s still one of the largest in terms of industry revenue and viewership.
  - jessaustin 8y ago
    Pro boxing can continue as a profitable spectacle without requiring lots of "developmental" amateur participation. For decades, most boxers have been drawn from relatively disadvantaged populations (recent immigrants, minorities, etc.) who are less likely to have access to the sort of legal representation required to address CTE liability. Who would they sue anyway? Most boxing gyms are dumps that barely keep the lights on. It's interesting to imagine football going that way. The college game would probably have to disappear. (which it should do anyway because institutions of learning should not concentrate most of their energies on frivolous contests between indentured servants) High school teams might be replaced by AAU teams run by shady coaches who could never be sued. I'm not sure where they would play, however. A football field is a big investment that is always going to be attached to some deep pockets. It's not clear that football could survive in the same way that boxing survives.

tunesmith 8y ago

NFL should guarantee lifetime health coverage for anyone who plays one NFL regular season game. If that craters salaries, so be it.

thinkcontext 8y ago
That doesn't account for damages.
freewilly1040 8y ago
They should do this, though as the article demonstrates good luck finding a carrier to buy it from
- nradov 8y ago
  The NFL doesn't need a carrier. They can self insure and contract with a health insurer to just do the claims administration.

kingkawn 8y ago

From public health perspective do not underestimate the importance of gladiatorial sports in channeling society-wide aggressive impulses

hcho 8y ago
I'd like to see some data on that.

russfink 8y ago

Why is this on HN?

lukeqsee 8y ago
Because it's interesting to the HN users; I know I found it interesting a few days ago when I read it. HN isn't just about tech, startups, and the ilk. :)