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Football is a brutal sport. I played football for 9 years (1 in college). I made my best friends playing football, gained confidence, learned countless life le
by gringoDan 6y ago
Football is a brutal sport.
I played football for 9 years (1 in college). I made my best friends playing football, gained confidence, learned countless life lessons...but I still wouldn't let my future children play the game because of the risk of brain injury. A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a former teammate where we wondered if there have been long-term effects on our brains. And we played at nowhere near the level of the athletes here.
I'm convinced we're going to see football go the way of boxing. Boxing still exists, but it doesn't have nearly the appeal that it did 40-50 years ago, when a quarter of the planet watched The Rumble in the Jungle. [0] Boxing (competitive boxing, not workout classes) isn't a sport that upper-middle class kids get involved in. Youth football is headed in the same direction; participation rates are down as parents don't let their kids play (and other sports increase in popularity).
Every activity we choose to engage in comes with some degree of risk. The ethical issue here is twofold:
1) Do we adequately understand the risks, and are the people playing the game (children) equipped to make the decision of whether or not to play?
2) As a society, what degree of risk are we willing to tolerate? How many suicides is too many? [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rumble_in_the_Jungle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rumble_in_the_Jungle
[1] I have mixed feelings about Malcolm Gladwell, but his podcast on the ethics of football (especially as it relates to higher education institutions, whose missions run counter to the idea of bashing one's brain in) was thought-provoking: http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/22-burden-of-proof http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/22-burden-of-proof
- wheresmycraisin 6y ago> Youth football is headed in the same direction; participation rates are down as parents don't let their kids play (and other sports increase in popularity). Source on this?
- gringoDan 6y agoWas more anecdotal, but quick Google search produced this: https://www.statista.com/statistics/191658/participants-in-tackle-football-in-the-us-since-2006/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/191658/participants-in-t...
- anm89 6y agoThis is a bizarre response to someone stating an opinion.
- barumi 6y agoIt seems you failed to notice any of the many unsupported statements on current trends and tendencies and statistics.
- dluan 6y agoI agree that football will eventually die out mainly for the injury concern, and that perhaps it is a matter of when not if soccer manages to replace it. But on the other hand, MMA is immensely popular and replacing boxing and/or attracting new fans that boxing no longer was appealing to.
- anonAndOn 6y agoBut there's no shame in tapping out of an MMA elbow lock because fighters (rightly) want to retain the use of both arms. I have never seen a boxer tap out. Refs will sometimes end a match when they want to save a boxer from getting beaten to death in the ring, but the boxers are usually reluctant to leave the fight.
- djitz 6y agoBoxers certainly take a knee or quit in the corner, but it is frowned upon. MMA is just a completely different dynamic. There is no standing count and the trend of refs stopping fights early on flurries of arm punches is undeniable.
- headcanon 6y ago> isn't a sport that upper-middle class kids get involved in. This brings up a really interesting point I haven't seen addressed before - sports can be seen in some communities as a way to "get out". As more science gets out about the long-term effects about these sports, upper-middle class families whose children have more certain white-collar futures ahead of them won't do it, leaving the poorer kids to take on the risk. America's always been happy to throw the poorest of us in the meat grinder, why not football?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Balgair 6y agoThe trick is that these sports then don't have as long of a life if the money isn't in it. Upper/middle class adults are less likely to want to spend money watching sports they never played in their youth. Maybe more so if they see the sport as barbaric. Exceptions abound, of course.
- cafard 6y agoa. If you search the NY Times, you can find a piece by a Black football coach talking about the tradeoffs for kids looking for a way up and out. b. Back in probably the 1940s, Joe DiMaggio said that no kid from a rich family every made it in the big leagues. Baseball, at least since helmets, is not that dangerous a sport.
- geophile 6y agoI agree, I think football is going to go away. The now apparent risk of brain injury is one reason. But another major factor is political, starting with the kneeling protests. This caused football, like so many other things to split along political lines. Basketball is turning out to be blue, football red. That's an oversimplification, but I think there is some truth to it, especially with respect to the politics of the football team owners that have been made plain for everyone to see. And let's face it, ignoring health because your red tribe demands it, is very much on brand, as we now see with coronavirus. I don't think football is going to go away soon, but I can easily see it becoming an entertainment primarily for the red part of America.
- kevstev 6y agoI am shocked that the nfl hasn't started a "my life depends on it" type of project to develop safety gear that will protect players better or test out major changes in rules that will make players less prone to injury. When I was younger I used to feel the risk was worth it- yeah you risk your body but you make a million dollars a year- you are set! Now I realize that little of that money is guaranteed, 1.6% of college players get drafted, and most of those wash out in a year or two after making the league minimum or practice squad minimum. After taxes, agents and the like, it's a horrible expected return for even the best of the best.