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It's really not as simple as you make it sound. You completely handwave over how it could be replaced. Convincing the South-central and Southeast US to start f

It's really not as simple as you make it sound. You completely handwave over how it could be replaced. Convincing the South-central and Southeast US to start following track instead of American football, is about as realistic as trying to convince Brazil to follow cricket instead of soccer. You are talking about a huge change in culture and customs for many millions of people. Really the only hope would be some sort of legislation banning football, but it's not feasible to pass dramatically unpopular legislation in a democracy (especially a democracy as deadlocked and slow-moving as the federal level of the US, where even relatively widely supported reforms are impossible or extremely difficult to implement). A more realistic (still far-fetched, but maybe not literally impossible) proposal would be to spin off college sports teams. Let Auburn Sports, LLC be a separate organization from Auburn University. Let it pay its players and turn a profit. Don't let it grant degrees. The small percentage of people who are qualified for both institutions could attend both simultaneously if they chose to do so. That's already effectively the situation now. A few academically driven players get serious degrees, whereas the vast majority get fake ones. Why not get rid of the pretense? This wouldn't fix the problem of brain injury, but at least it would eliminate the excuse for exploiting elite sportsmen without pay under the bullshit fig leaf that they're "students". All the college sports which are genuinely amateur in the sense that they don't make any money or have the possibility of leading to a big-league career (i.e., basically everything except football, basketball, and to a much smaller extent baseball and soccer) could continue to be run by universities for people who would have been students anyway but wanted to also compete in track and field or whatever.

JakeTheAndroid 8y ago
Finally someone I agree with that has weighed the practicality and reality of the situation, instead of trying to create magical solutions that don't exist today. Outside of cultural interest, people are ignoring the fact of volume of players in the NFL and physical composition of the players. The NFL has more roster spots than the NBA, NHL, MLB, etc. 22 players are required to play both sides of football. That means they need to employ far more people. Also, many of these football athletic people wouldn't be good at other sports. An O-Lineman cannot be expected to play basketball or baseball or soccer. They are 6'7 300 lbs of immovable mass, that's what they are built for. This provides entirely different types of athletic individuals to enter into the lottery. Without any data, I would expect the NFL to have the most diverse forms of "athleticism" from any sport, including something like MMA. Eliminating football entirely doesn't seem like the solution or even realistic to any degree. Instead, let's pay these college players and remove the facade. Make the risks known to the players and let them take that on if they want to. We can also then address the other solutions that people have suggested because both can exist at the same time.
- smileysteve 8y ago
  > They are 6'7 300 lbs of immovable mass, that's what they are built for This raises the issue that you have many people trying to become this that don't, and we wonder why we have high healthcare costs.
smileysteve 8y ago
> Convincing the South-central and Southeast US to Interesting if only because the 2018 MLS Champions, are Atlanta United; and regularly sold more seats than the superbowl.
munificent 8y ago
> Convincing the South-central and Southeast US to start following track instead of American football I grew up in Texas and Louisiana and went to school at LSU, which has the #6 largest college stadium in the US, so I'm well aware of how ingrained in US culture it is. But culture changes. In 1965, 42.4 percent of adults smoked. It's hard to get more deeply ingrained in the American identity than the Marlboro man, John Wayne, and James Dean. Watch a movie from that era sometime. Everyone is smoking in it. Hell, in Alien, the crew is constantly lighting up and they're in a spaceship in the future. In 2017, it was down to 14%, and that's for a product that is profoundly chemically addictive and notoriously hard to quit. All we need to do to "fix" football is keep beating the "you're destroying kids' brains" drum and it will wither and die. Football depends entirely on culture and popularity. If it becomes less cool, less socially approved, it will fall. Especially when there are easy substitutes. If you still want to throw on a jersey and go to a game with your buddies, just go to the nearest baseball, soccer, or basketball game instead.

JakeTheAndroid 8y ago

Finally someone I agree with that has weighed the practicality and reality of the situation, instead of trying to create magical solutions that don't exist today. Outside of cultural interest, people are ignoring the fact of volume of players in the NFL and physical composition of the players. The NFL has more roster spots than the NBA, NHL, MLB, etc. 22 players are required to play both sides of football. That means they need to employ far more people. Also, many of these football athletic people wouldn't be good at other sports. An O-Lineman cannot be expected to play basketball or baseball or soccer. They are 6'7 300 lbs of immovable mass, that's what they are built for. This provides entirely different types of athletic individuals to enter into the lottery. Without any data, I would expect the NFL to have the most diverse forms of "athleticism" from any sport, including something like MMA. Eliminating football entirely doesn't seem like the solution or even realistic to any degree. Instead, let's pay these college players and remove the facade. Make the risks known to the players and let them take that on if they want to. We can also then address the other solutions that people have suggested because both can exist at the same time.

smileysteve 8y ago
> They are 6'7 300 lbs of immovable mass, that's what they are built for This raises the issue that you have many people trying to become this that don't, and we wonder why we have high healthcare costs.

smileysteve 8y ago

> Convincing the South-central and Southeast US to Interesting if only because the 2018 MLS Champions, are Atlanta United; and regularly sold more seats than the superbowl.

munificent 8y ago

> Convincing the South-central and Southeast US to start following track instead of American football I grew up in Texas and Louisiana and went to school at LSU, which has the #6 largest college stadium in the US, so I'm well aware of how ingrained in US culture it is. But culture changes. In 1965, 42.4 percent of adults smoked. It's hard to get more deeply ingrained in the American identity than the Marlboro man, John Wayne, and James Dean. Watch a movie from that era sometime. Everyone is smoking in it. Hell, in Alien, the crew is constantly lighting up and they're in a spaceship in the future. In 2017, it was down to 14%, and that's for a product that is profoundly chemically addictive and notoriously hard to quit. All we need to do to "fix" football is keep beating the "you're destroying kids' brains" drum and it will wither and die. Football depends entirely on culture and popularity. If it becomes less cool, less socially approved, it will fall. Especially when there are easy substitutes. If you still want to throw on a jersey and go to a game with your buddies, just go to the nearest baseball, soccer, or basketball game instead.