4 ms·

The consequences of repeated head injuries from sports and fighting are well known and understood since 1920. Doing impact sports (football!) professionally or

The consequences of repeated head injuries from sports and fighting are well known and understood since 1920. Doing impact sports (football!) professionally or fighting professionally and staying healthy is just not possible without neutering the sports. Maybe this should be made even clearer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalopathy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalopat...

aidenn0 3y ago
My mom had a concussion in the 1960s and was repeatedly told by her doctor that she was not to do any activities that put her at risk of another head-injury for at least 6 months because sequential concussions are so bad. You can imagine her reaction when the NFL played stupid with "we had no idea the players needed so long to recover" 40 years later. I think helmets were, to a large degree, merely there so that the fans could pretend players weren't getting concussions as often as they really were. Boxing fans (and non-fans) are aware that getting hit in the head a lot is bad, but there aren't enough boxing fans in the US to fill a single NFL stadium, much less 16 a week.
- jjeaff 3y ago
  interesting, I just thought they were cumulative. I didn't realize there is an increased risk if they are closer together.
  - Traubenfuchs 3y ago
    > closer together Not necessarily: The increased and stacking vulnerability to brain damage after concussions might not go away ever. I don't think this has been researched.
    - chimeracoder 3y ago
      > Not necessarily: The increased and stacking vulnerability to brain damage after concussions might not go away ever. I don't think this has been researched. There are some permanent cumulative effects of concussions, though it's pretty well-accepted that repeated concussions in close succession (without sufficient time for recovery) is worse than concussions that are spaced out. Second impacts are much more likely to have serious consequences, including death, than initial impacts of similar magnitude[0]. You'll never get "definitive proof" of this because a double-blind study would be extremely unethical (let alone impractical), but there's enough understanding of the underlying science to make this conclusion relatively safely. In short: repeated head injury is bad regardless of how much time is allocated to recovery in between and has some permanent cumulative effects, but repeated head injury in short succession (for some definition of "short") is markedly worse. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-impact_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-impact_syndrome
  - aidenn0 3y ago
    Regardless of whether or not they are increased in risk when closer together, the concussion protocols the NFL has in place now treats them as if they are, and the medical community has long (as in many decades) suspected they are, a fact which the NFL feigned ignorance about.
- Traubenfuchs 3y ago
  I always overestimate the medical knowledge of the average person, but then again, the average person goes to a concert without ear plugs and laughs about their tinnitus next day.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > Boxing fans (and non-fans) are aware that getting hit in the head a lot is bad, but there aren't enough boxing fans in the US to fill a single NFL stadium, much less 16 a week. There used to be. Boxing used to be huge. I've seen the theory floated that the reason boxing died as a spectator sport was precisely that all the fans got to watch their heroes lose their minds.
  - bjourne 3y ago
    Nah, boxing is huge outside of the US. The lack of interest is due to the lack of good American boxers. After Mayweather retired there haven't been much.
    - coffeebeqn 3y ago
      Did they all go to MMA? There have been a lot of fighters in the last 10 years with great boxing in addition to their other skills. Someone like O’Malley or Pereira probably would’ve done fine in boxing if that was his only focus
- methodical 3y ago
  > there aren't enough boxing fans in the US to fill a single NFL stadium, much less 16 a week. Do you have any proof for this at all? The most anticipated boxing matches usually get over a million pay-per-view buys, not including the tickets sold for the actual arenas.
  - aidenn0 3y ago
    And the Superbowl gets over 100M viewers -- a two-orders-of-magnitude difference. [edit] Yes, there are literally more than 80,250 (MetLife stadium's capacity) fans of boxing in the US. However e.g. the Kingdom Arena (location of Fury v. Ngannaou) seats about 30,000. If there were a 17 week boxing match season in the US, it clearly would be a much smaller draw than gridiron football, and that doesn't even include the college game, which has 8 stadiums that seat over 100k (and 6 more that are larger than MetLife).
    - methodical 3y ago
      PPV Sales can't be compared to Super Bowl viewership numbers, considering there's a pretty significant difference between watching something included with your existing TV subscription versus paying another $50+ to watch a one-night event. I'm not trying to argue that boxing matches are necessarily on the same level of viewership as the Super Bowl, but you can't compare them directly like that. I'm also not arguing that boxing could sell out NFL stadiums over multi-week spans, I'm directly arguing the point that "there aren't enough boxing fans in the US to fill an entire NFL stadium", which is completely false.
- jasonfarnon 3y ago
  You can imagine her reaction when the NFL played stupid with "we had no idea the players needed so long to recover" 40 years later. Well the first I heard even doctors making a big deal about them was the mid 2000s CTE research. And even that research was strongly linked with just one lab at BU iirc. It sounds like you're comparing the NFL to big tobacco. As much as I detest NFL commissioners/management, I don't think that comparison tracks with the science.
screenoridesaga 3y ago
Except not really, I wouldn’t be surprised if CTE is actually higher in non-athletes, nobody is checking the mass majority of these people. The insurance companies always make accident related CTE into another illness so it’s impossible to say, but look outside the US. A LOT more realistic stats.
nojvek 3y ago
Should clarify which football. For most of the world football === soccer and that is a much safer sport where career athletes don't end up with concussions. American Football, like Australian Rugby is a much more violent sport.
- mrmuagi 3y ago
  I read somewhere that heading the ball could cause concussions aswell since it's many micro-concussions that add up?
  - scotty79 3y ago
    Yes, I definitely read that too. It was about bouncing the ball with your head. It's a normal and common element of this sport.
  - linhns 3y ago
    Yep, that’s why they have head training as part of daily routine.
- jjtheblunt 3y ago
  There's no way soccer/football headers aren't causing concussions. Here's some hard data. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9748028/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9748028/
- proc0 3y ago
  Football (soccer) is much harsher than it looks. It's not just headers but also falling down while sprinting full speed is dangerous and can be very painful even though it looks like you just rolled on the a ground a bit. You can also clip your shin or ankle with another player's, and it can be completely invisible to the audience but it's incredibly painful.

aidenn0 3y ago

My mom had a concussion in the 1960s and was repeatedly told by her doctor that she was not to do any activities that put her at risk of another head-injury for at least 6 months because sequential concussions are so bad. You can imagine her reaction when the NFL played stupid with "we had no idea the players needed so long to recover" 40 years later. I think helmets were, to a large degree, merely there so that the fans could pretend players weren't getting concussions as often as they really were. Boxing fans (and non-fans) are aware that getting hit in the head a lot is bad, but there aren't enough boxing fans in the US to fill a single NFL stadium, much less 16 a week.

jjeaff 3y ago
interesting, I just thought they were cumulative. I didn't realize there is an increased risk if they are closer together.
- Traubenfuchs 3y ago
  > closer together Not necessarily: The increased and stacking vulnerability to brain damage after concussions might not go away ever. I don't think this has been researched.
  - chimeracoder 3y ago
    > Not necessarily: The increased and stacking vulnerability to brain damage after concussions might not go away ever. I don't think this has been researched. There are some permanent cumulative effects of concussions, though it's pretty well-accepted that repeated concussions in close succession (without sufficient time for recovery) is worse than concussions that are spaced out. Second impacts are much more likely to have serious consequences, including death, than initial impacts of similar magnitude[0]. You'll never get "definitive proof" of this because a double-blind study would be extremely unethical (let alone impractical), but there's enough understanding of the underlying science to make this conclusion relatively safely. In short: repeated head injury is bad regardless of how much time is allocated to recovery in between and has some permanent cumulative effects, but repeated head injury in short succession (for some definition of "short") is markedly worse. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-impact_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-impact_syndrome
- aidenn0 3y ago
  Regardless of whether or not they are increased in risk when closer together, the concussion protocols the NFL has in place now treats them as if they are, and the medical community has long (as in many decades) suspected they are, a fact which the NFL feigned ignorance about.
Traubenfuchs 3y ago
I always overestimate the medical knowledge of the average person, but then again, the average person goes to a concert without ear plugs and laughs about their tinnitus next day.
thaumasiotes 3y ago
> Boxing fans (and non-fans) are aware that getting hit in the head a lot is bad, but there aren't enough boxing fans in the US to fill a single NFL stadium, much less 16 a week. There used to be. Boxing used to be huge. I've seen the theory floated that the reason boxing died as a spectator sport was precisely that all the fans got to watch their heroes lose their minds.
- bjourne 3y ago
  Nah, boxing is huge outside of the US. The lack of interest is due to the lack of good American boxers. After Mayweather retired there haven't been much.
  - coffeebeqn 3y ago
    Did they all go to MMA? There have been a lot of fighters in the last 10 years with great boxing in addition to their other skills. Someone like O’Malley or Pereira probably would’ve done fine in boxing if that was his only focus
methodical 3y ago
> there aren't enough boxing fans in the US to fill a single NFL stadium, much less 16 a week. Do you have any proof for this at all? The most anticipated boxing matches usually get over a million pay-per-view buys, not including the tickets sold for the actual arenas.
- aidenn0 3y ago
  And the Superbowl gets over 100M viewers -- a two-orders-of-magnitude difference. [edit] Yes, there are literally more than 80,250 (MetLife stadium's capacity) fans of boxing in the US. However e.g. the Kingdom Arena (location of Fury v. Ngannaou) seats about 30,000. If there were a 17 week boxing match season in the US, it clearly would be a much smaller draw than gridiron football, and that doesn't even include the college game, which has 8 stadiums that seat over 100k (and 6 more that are larger than MetLife).
  - methodical 3y ago
    PPV Sales can't be compared to Super Bowl viewership numbers, considering there's a pretty significant difference between watching something included with your existing TV subscription versus paying another $50+ to watch a one-night event. I'm not trying to argue that boxing matches are necessarily on the same level of viewership as the Super Bowl, but you can't compare them directly like that. I'm also not arguing that boxing could sell out NFL stadiums over multi-week spans, I'm directly arguing the point that "there aren't enough boxing fans in the US to fill an entire NFL stadium", which is completely false.
jasonfarnon 3y ago
You can imagine her reaction when the NFL played stupid with "we had no idea the players needed so long to recover" 40 years later. Well the first I heard even doctors making a big deal about them was the mid 2000s CTE research. And even that research was strongly linked with just one lab at BU iirc. It sounds like you're comparing the NFL to big tobacco. As much as I detest NFL commissioners/management, I don't think that comparison tracks with the science.

screenoridesaga 3y ago

Except not really, I wouldn’t be surprised if CTE is actually higher in non-athletes, nobody is checking the mass majority of these people. The insurance companies always make accident related CTE into another illness so it’s impossible to say, but look outside the US. A LOT more realistic stats.

nojvek 3y ago

Should clarify which football. For most of the world football === soccer and that is a much safer sport where career athletes don't end up with concussions. American Football, like Australian Rugby is a much more violent sport.

mrmuagi 3y ago
I read somewhere that heading the ball could cause concussions aswell since it's many micro-concussions that add up?
- scotty79 3y ago
  Yes, I definitely read that too. It was about bouncing the ball with your head. It's a normal and common element of this sport.
- linhns 3y ago
  Yep, that’s why they have head training as part of daily routine.
jjtheblunt 3y ago
There's no way soccer/football headers aren't causing concussions. Here's some hard data. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9748028/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9748028/
proc0 3y ago
Football (soccer) is much harsher than it looks. It's not just headers but also falling down while sprinting full speed is dangerous and can be very painful even though it looks like you just rolled on the a ground a bit. You can also clip your shin or ankle with another player's, and it can be completely invisible to the audience but it's incredibly painful.