I doubt football will end anytime soon, but it should.
Especially thinking about universities -- to me, college football is not much more than a tragic exploitation system. Kids are recruited from age 14 and get promised the moon by coaches/staff, spend 5 years getting banged up (concussions etc) for life, and most wind up scraping through with a useless degree if they graduate at all. A tiny percentage go pro and the rest are left out to dry with few career prospects having missed out on their education. Most pros don't make that much during their career and don't have great quality of life after it's over (run out of money, lack of marketable skills, head damage).
The big media companies love it, and heads of universities like the "school spirit" and brand appeal (even though most schools lose money on football). But for the players involved, it's basically a scam. Even though they're getting a free education.
You might make similar arguments for other college sports (not sure how I feel about that having been part of one), but for football I think it's the most clear-cut.
I don't think it's as dismal as you make it look. My brother just accepted a football scholarship at a highly academically rated BCS school. I think there are 66 BCS schools and each one gives out about 20-24 scholarships each year. It's a huge opportunity to get a free education, play a sport he loves and make lifelong relationships with his teammates. A football locker room at the highest levels is about as exclusive a club as there is. I don't know how much tuition is or the other things the scholarship includes, but I wouldn't be surprised if it approaches $200k.
He can be a fool, get beat up and leave without a degree or he can take advantage of an opportunity many people only dream of. The coaches aren't telling him what classes to take. He can take whatever he wants. He can choose a useless program, a great program or anything in between. He can choose to meet the minimum requirements to stay on the team and keep his scholarship or he can choose to excel academically.
On the field, he can choose to hide a concussion or take some time off. He won't lose his scholarship over it. Most players feel pressure to play through injuries, and although it can come from peers and coaches, they often place most of it upon themselves. They are incredibly competitive and don't want to be sidelined for anything.
My point is all the choices are his to make. The same applies to other players. There are few victims in this who aren't victims of their own decisions. If a kid washes out of some dumbass cake walk program for kids who don't give a shit about school, sustains injuries in a sport he would play with or without a scholarship and has zero career prospects is that the fault of the system? I don't think so.
There are ways to twist it around to make it look like a scam, and it's true there are plenty of things wrong with college football, specifically the BCS. It's a feeder system for the NFL, a bunch of people make piles of money and the kids don't make anything. It may be all of those things, but it is also an opportunity for the lucky recipient of a football scholarship to change his life, either for good or bad.
>> But for the players involved, it's basically a scam. Even though they're getting a free education.
Sure, universities make money off college football, but let's not call this a "tragic exploitation system."
The players aren't forced to play. They 'love' football. That's why they're playing.
The far majority of college players (in all sports) know that they're not going to be playing professionally. But yet they still play. Because it's their dream to play.
Interesting read. But the authors assume that most people would move from obsession with football to watching no sports at all. It seems more likely to me that people would simply replace football with some other sport.
I saw this firsthand in Seattle when the Sonics left for Oklahoma City. Several of my friends who were lifelong fans swore they would never watch NBA basketball again and became hardcore MLS (Major League Soccer) fans.
FTA: "One of the biggest winners would be basketball. To the extent that fans replace football with another sport (instead of meth or oxy), high-octane basketball is the natural substitute. On the pro level, the season can stretch out leisurely, ticket prices rise, ratings rise, maybe the league expands (more great athletes in the pool now), and some of the centers and power forwards will have more bulk. At the college level, March Madness becomes the only game in town."
The authors cover this twice. Once when they briefly mention soccer, may perhaps, take more prominence among Americans, and much more thoroughly, when they posit that the collapse of football would most benefit basketball, as it would be the next substitute.
But regardless, their points about the potential resulting benefits outside of the sporting world still has merit in my eyes. For example, there are large universities that derive much of their funding and student enrollment based heavily on the marketability of their football programs. Schools like Ohio State, Oklahoma, Alabama, and LSU come to mind. Without the marketing strength of their football teams, perhaps the schools would be forced to put more effort into enhancing and promoting academic achievement.
I actually laughed out loud when the author said, "Heck, just getting rid of fantasy football probably saves American companies hundreds of millions of dollars annually." Yeah, fantasy football might disappear, but that doesn't mean that the phenomenon of fantasy sports would disappear too. It'd just be replaced with other fantasy sports.
More likely, the NFL will gradually transition to a safer game that resembles flag football. It may lose some of its audience, but there's too much brand value to fold completely.
The US would finally pay attention to soccer, like the rest of the world? That's practically the only other thing we can use the stadiums for, and since we've collectively invested billions of dollars in public funds to build the damn things it wouldn't make much sense to just demolish them.
Maybe without football, we'd be closer to finally decoupling youth sports from the education system.
Maybe without football, we'd be closer to finally decoupling youth sports from the education system.
Going off track, but by finally are you saying that's a positive thing?
I'm a nerd. I've always been a nerd. I had the absolute minimum mandatory participation in sports during school. That is one of my biggest regrets. Sports have incredible importance in so many ways.
I live about 30 minutes from Clemson (the football town mentioned.) Football is huge in the south. I'm not used to it, and have, in fact, never been to a football game. Except maybe once, but that was for the girls.
It's quite crazy though how much these football towns rely on a sport. The rivalries, the competition, and the booze. I always said if you wanted to rob a house, a friday night would be ideal because literally 50% of the town is at a football game. I really think it's just something everyone can relate to. In these towns where textiles and industry are prominent and there isn't much innovation, looking forward to that friday night football game with the guys is something that gives peoples lives meaning. I'm not sure my point, but I figured I should but in and say that there are such things as these towns and football is very real in the south and without it I would be very interested to see what people cling to next.
Basketball is big-ish, but most schools either have one or the other. I'm a big fan of Kentucky basketball, but everyone knows their football team sucks. That's usually how it goes. So maybe it would go like the article said and basketball just gets huge and more rounded in all towns.
I was just about to say the same thing about Basketball here. I'm in KY and our local high school team always does well, and our college team, while never great, had a good season last year, as well, and has a few bright stars amongst its roster. March is crazy here. It's nothing but basketball, basketball, basketball, and my Facebook and Twitter feeds fill up with commentary every time there's a game. The local community gets behind it, even at the high school level. The school district closes school for the day if the team has an out-of-town game in the state tournament, so people can attend, etc. (As a parent, I don't agree with this action, but none the less, it is interesting from a social perspective).
I'm not a huge fan of the sport, but even I find it hard not to get sucked in.
I go to school at Mississippi State, and I've been to a lot of at-home football games. It's definitely tightly ingrained in the culture down here, and not just for the lower classes- game days are major social events for a large portion of the students and alumni. Some people spend thousands of dollars a season to drive up every weekend, socialize with friends and family, grill out, and tailgate (more like a picnic, actually.) Some of my friends' families don't bat an eyelash at dropping upwards of $500 a weekend if you add in the cost of tickets, gas, food, and alcohol.
I think the big draw of football, though, especially among low-income people, is that it's an accessible way for your average fan to engage in analysis without actually being responsible for failure.
Of course in the north, you get places like Michigan/Michigan State, where they have hugely successful football, basketball, hockey, and baseball teams.
Concussions aren't going to cause the "end of football". A lot of people forget that football used to be a MUCH more dangerous sport. Take for example that in 1905 there were 18 football related deaths with 20 times fewer players than there are today. If it weren't for Teddy Roosevelt pushing for rule changes and the use of leather helmets then we probably wouldn't have football today.
Football is a dangerous sport, I'm not denying it. But the players know the risk when they start playing. The risk is why they make as much money as they do.
The thing that American football provides that is absent in most other sports is the strategic match up on every down between offense and defense. That strategic part adds a whole other level to the game which adds huge depth to the analysis that fans can dig into. The game that the coaches are playing by selecting plays against each other is more involved than in any other sport. Any replacement sport that I know of would be missing this important element.
When reading the headline I thought for a second they were talking about the 'other' football...the one that 90% of the world are infatuated with. I imagine the end of that would occur roughly the same time as the extinction of the human race.
Plenty of other contact team sports exist (Rugby, AFL etc) - how is American Football different? How does an American Football player get tackled differently to say a Rugby Union player?
Having played both, there are some key differences:
- American Football allows blocking, whereas rugby does not. This means it's perfectly legal to blindside someone as hard as you can, often helmet to helmet.
- Football allows tackling above the waist without wrapping your arms around the other player, whereas rugby does not. This means people can launch themselves at the other player as hard as they want without wrapping up, basically turning themselves into large projectiles. The goal, up until recently (since the league started cracking down), was to have a helmet-to-helmet collision in order to knock the other player out (most often happening to wide-receivers). Knocking out another player is a point of pride and a strategic advantage as well.
- Football has armor, Rugby does not. This actually works against Football. It encourages harder hits and head-to-head collisions. Football helmets protect against skull fractures but not concussions. The brain moves independent of the skull in a high impact collision despite how shock absorbant the helmet may be. In rugby, players are a LOT less likely to crack each other's heads together because of the risk of fracture.
I played rugby for 7 years through high school and college, and Football 2 years in high school. I never received any concussions in Rugby (let alone any serious injury at all), but did receive them in my short experience playing football, and at the Junior Varsity level no less.
If I ever have a son, as much as I love the sport, he is banned from playing American football.
In American Football the tackler uses his body more as a missile, typically leading with the head. In Rugby the tackler leads more with the shoulder, making sure the head is out of the way, and it's more of a "wrap-up" technique.
Also, I would think that the velocities and masses involved in American Football are higher - it is more of an anaerobic sport due to the short play duration, frequent breaks between plays, and frequent player substitutions.
Watching this vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhmMU6afIHo
Not sure if those are legal tackles but the number of head high hits, coathangers etc is pretty astounding.
That would see you sent off in Australia with a multiple match ban and other punishment.
the way the impacts happen. in rugby contact rarely happens with players moving in directly opposite directions, usually its at an angle that reduces the impact,and seldom involves the head.
football is the opposite, especially with runs up the middle , receivers cutting across the middle of the field, and the smaller, but constant, impacts experienced by the linemen on both sides of the ball.
Wouldn't institutions just ask players to sign a waivers to indemnify them? Aren't there enough kids in the pipeline dreaming of stardom that will sign such a waiver without thinking twice?
Waivers still have to hold up in court. Just because they're waterproof doesn't mean they're legal. Any contract can be overthrown if it understates the risk or if there was gross negligence on the part of the coach.
Startup opportunity for accelerometers in helmets/pads/shoes and real-time data collection?
I imagine if you came up with the right visualizations, that fans would be interested, e.g., "omg, did you see how the LB lit up that receiver coming over the middle! 150 Gs of impact . . . "
An interesting article, but I can't understand why the author thinks the current football code would wither and die in quite the way he proposes when there are other codes with much better safety records and to which they could transition relatively easily; why would the asset holders voluntarily wind up rather than trying to maximise their returns?
* Rugby Union / Rugby League. USA already has a relatively decent national Rugby Union side - certainly not top drawer, but able to compete at World Cup level. The facilities could be relatively easily converted and while there are certainly game subtleties that are very different (a complete ban on forward passes, for example), it'd likely be an easier player transition than to soccer or basketball.
* International Rules Football. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_rules_football) An existing hybrid of Gaelic football (for which I'd be astonished if there weren't east coast teams...) and Aussie Rules Football. Again, American teams exist, the pitches would be relatively easily converted, the skills are based around ball carrying and throwing...
Universities make too much money from football to just kill it. Too many large franchises make enormous sums from it, too many towns have it as a significant percentage of GDP. No transition to a new code would ever be easy but, if the writing was on the wall, the financial incentive for (say) one of the large conferences to give 3 years notice of transition to a new code in preference seem enormous in comparison with simply shuttering.
(Now, speaking as a Brit sports fan, if North America could only switch from Baseball to T20 Cricket then.... ;-))
There are probably too many vested interests for that to happen from the top down. One issue the article raises is that the decline would be mostly from the bottom-up as insurance cost and perceived risk respectively diminish high school leagues, and participation. This decline would occur over a long enough timeline that, by the time such a drastic action could be contemplated, football would have transitioned from a cultural institution to an also-ran (as the current soccer and rugby leagues).
Hockey is having its own CTE crisis. The NHL has had a few drug deaths and suicides recently that were likely caused by CTE. Hard hits and fighting are a big part of the game. They don't have to be, but they are.
I'm not so sure about that. I think they would watch more basketball and baseball first. It's part national pride, part familiarity. Basketball, baseball, and football are all "American" sports. Baseball and football evolved from cricket and soccer, and basketball was created in the US. There are professional soccer and hockey leagues in the US, but neither sport has really taken off. I'm not so sure that would change in the unlikely event that the NFL folds.
One of the main points from the author is that high school and college players will sue the school for injuries sustained in football, causing insurance agencies to not insure the school, causing the death of football.
This is not possible because if this started to happen schools would require you to sign a contract before being allowed to play. The contract will forbid you from suing the school for any injuries. This will then become standard practice.
They already make you sign those contracts, yet schools carry insurance anyways. Those contracts make it harder to successfully sue, but they do not make it impossible.
It would be interesting to see how this affected the MLS and therefore world soccer as a whole. The best players in the world could move to the MLS rather than the european leagues, and America could start to dominate at a national level.
The world club championships would be more interesting, that's for sure.
I think that football has too much value to the American military-industrial complex to go away without a similar sport replacing it. Highschool football is the real ROTC, where students learn to obey orders and sacrifice their bodies for a common goal. In addition to being huge moneymakers, NCAA and NFL are aspirational advertisement for highschool play.
[+] [-] bo1024|14 years ago|reply
Especially thinking about universities -- to me, college football is not much more than a tragic exploitation system. Kids are recruited from age 14 and get promised the moon by coaches/staff, spend 5 years getting banged up (concussions etc) for life, and most wind up scraping through with a useless degree if they graduate at all. A tiny percentage go pro and the rest are left out to dry with few career prospects having missed out on their education. Most pros don't make that much during their career and don't have great quality of life after it's over (run out of money, lack of marketable skills, head damage).
The big media companies love it, and heads of universities like the "school spirit" and brand appeal (even though most schools lose money on football). But for the players involved, it's basically a scam. Even though they're getting a free education.
You might make similar arguments for other college sports (not sure how I feel about that having been part of one), but for football I think it's the most clear-cut.
[+] [-] jm4|14 years ago|reply
He can be a fool, get beat up and leave without a degree or he can take advantage of an opportunity many people only dream of. The coaches aren't telling him what classes to take. He can take whatever he wants. He can choose a useless program, a great program or anything in between. He can choose to meet the minimum requirements to stay on the team and keep his scholarship or he can choose to excel academically.
On the field, he can choose to hide a concussion or take some time off. He won't lose his scholarship over it. Most players feel pressure to play through injuries, and although it can come from peers and coaches, they often place most of it upon themselves. They are incredibly competitive and don't want to be sidelined for anything.
My point is all the choices are his to make. The same applies to other players. There are few victims in this who aren't victims of their own decisions. If a kid washes out of some dumbass cake walk program for kids who don't give a shit about school, sustains injuries in a sport he would play with or without a scholarship and has zero career prospects is that the fault of the system? I don't think so.
There are ways to twist it around to make it look like a scam, and it's true there are plenty of things wrong with college football, specifically the BCS. It's a feeder system for the NFL, a bunch of people make piles of money and the kids don't make anything. It may be all of those things, but it is also an opportunity for the lucky recipient of a football scholarship to change his life, either for good or bad.
[+] [-] jwallaceparker|14 years ago|reply
Sure, universities make money off college football, but let's not call this a "tragic exploitation system."
The players aren't forced to play. They 'love' football. That's why they're playing.
The far majority of college players (in all sports) know that they're not going to be playing professionally. But yet they still play. Because it's their dream to play.
[+] [-] compay|14 years ago|reply
I saw this firsthand in Seattle when the Sonics left for Oklahoma City. Several of my friends who were lifelong fans swore they would never watch NBA basketball again and became hardcore MLS (Major League Soccer) fans.
[+] [-] Yhippa|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imjk|14 years ago|reply
But regardless, their points about the potential resulting benefits outside of the sporting world still has merit in my eyes. For example, there are large universities that derive much of their funding and student enrollment based heavily on the marketability of their football programs. Schools like Ohio State, Oklahoma, Alabama, and LSU come to mind. Without the marketing strength of their football teams, perhaps the schools would be forced to put more effort into enhancing and promoting academic achievement.
[+] [-] quanticle|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pupulon9|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hristov|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hessenwolf|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sbraford|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] troymc|14 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalopath...
[+] [-] philwelch|14 years ago|reply
Maybe without football, we'd be closer to finally decoupling youth sports from the education system.
[+] [-] peteretep|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] huggyface|14 years ago|reply
Going off track, but by finally are you saying that's a positive thing?
I'm a nerd. I've always been a nerd. I had the absolute minimum mandatory participation in sports during school. That is one of my biggest regrets. Sports have incredible importance in so many ways.
[+] [-] joshmlewis|14 years ago|reply
It's quite crazy though how much these football towns rely on a sport. The rivalries, the competition, and the booze. I always said if you wanted to rob a house, a friday night would be ideal because literally 50% of the town is at a football game. I really think it's just something everyone can relate to. In these towns where textiles and industry are prominent and there isn't much innovation, looking forward to that friday night football game with the guys is something that gives peoples lives meaning. I'm not sure my point, but I figured I should but in and say that there are such things as these towns and football is very real in the south and without it I would be very interested to see what people cling to next.
Basketball is big-ish, but most schools either have one or the other. I'm a big fan of Kentucky basketball, but everyone knows their football team sucks. That's usually how it goes. So maybe it would go like the article said and basketball just gets huge and more rounded in all towns.
[+] [-] kellishaver|14 years ago|reply
I'm not a huge fan of the sport, but even I find it hard not to get sucked in.
[+] [-] mhink|14 years ago|reply
I think the big draw of football, though, especially among low-income people, is that it's an accessible way for your average fan to engage in analysis without actually being responsible for failure.
[+] [-] freehunter|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PerryCox|14 years ago|reply
Football is a dangerous sport, I'm not denying it. But the players know the risk when they start playing. The risk is why they make as much money as they do.
Source: http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org/kidscorner/football.htm
[+] [-] guelo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josephcooney|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 10dpd|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shortsightedsid|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] itmag|14 years ago|reply
http://www.amerikanskfotboll.com
http://www.cheerleadersofsweden.se/
(That's right people: free money, blonde women, socialism, cheap Ikea furniture, cheerleaders, AND proper football. Paradise on Earth?)
If the sport can survive in a country where there is absolutely no tradition for it...
[+] [-] locusm|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] marknutter|14 years ago|reply
- American Football allows blocking, whereas rugby does not. This means it's perfectly legal to blindside someone as hard as you can, often helmet to helmet.
- Football allows tackling above the waist without wrapping your arms around the other player, whereas rugby does not. This means people can launch themselves at the other player as hard as they want without wrapping up, basically turning themselves into large projectiles. The goal, up until recently (since the league started cracking down), was to have a helmet-to-helmet collision in order to knock the other player out (most often happening to wide-receivers). Knocking out another player is a point of pride and a strategic advantage as well.
- Football has armor, Rugby does not. This actually works against Football. It encourages harder hits and head-to-head collisions. Football helmets protect against skull fractures but not concussions. The brain moves independent of the skull in a high impact collision despite how shock absorbant the helmet may be. In rugby, players are a LOT less likely to crack each other's heads together because of the risk of fracture.
I played rugby for 7 years through high school and college, and Football 2 years in high school. I never received any concussions in Rugby (let alone any serious injury at all), but did receive them in my short experience playing football, and at the Junior Varsity level no less.
If I ever have a son, as much as I love the sport, he is banned from playing American football.
[+] [-] MattF|14 years ago|reply
Also, I would think that the velocities and masses involved in American Football are higher - it is more of an anaerobic sport due to the short play duration, frequent breaks between plays, and frequent player substitutions.
[+] [-] locusm|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hristov|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dpeck|14 years ago|reply
football is the opposite, especially with runs up the middle , receivers cutting across the middle of the field, and the smaller, but constant, impacts experienced by the linemen on both sides of the ball.
[+] [-] gdilla|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] freehunter|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ScottBev|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] henrikschroder|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tom_b|14 years ago|reply
I imagine if you came up with the right visualizations, that fans would be interested, e.g., "omg, did you see how the LB lit up that receiver coming over the middle! 150 Gs of impact . . . "
And you know, since we are on HN, "Football Physics: The Anatomy of a Hit" http://www.popularmechanics.com/outdoors/sports/physics/4212...
[+] [-] openyogurt|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eftpotrm|14 years ago|reply
* Rugby Union / Rugby League. USA already has a relatively decent national Rugby Union side - certainly not top drawer, but able to compete at World Cup level. The facilities could be relatively easily converted and while there are certainly game subtleties that are very different (a complete ban on forward passes, for example), it'd likely be an easier player transition than to soccer or basketball.
* International Rules Football. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_rules_football) An existing hybrid of Gaelic football (for which I'd be astonished if there weren't east coast teams...) and Aussie Rules Football. Again, American teams exist, the pitches would be relatively easily converted, the skills are based around ball carrying and throwing...
Universities make too much money from football to just kill it. Too many large franchises make enormous sums from it, too many towns have it as a significant percentage of GDP. No transition to a new code would ever be easy but, if the writing was on the wall, the financial incentive for (say) one of the large conferences to give 3 years notice of transition to a new code in preference seem enormous in comparison with simply shuttering.
(Now, speaking as a Brit sports fan, if North America could only switch from Baseball to T20 Cricket then.... ;-))
[+] [-] bugsbunnyak|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] checker|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ImprovedSilence|14 years ago|reply
I don't have much constructive to say about the issue, but this is a fun comparison I came across the other day: http://proxy.espn.go.com/nhl/story/_/id/7550059/nhl-john-buc...
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rsanchez1|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frankydp|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Sembiance|14 years ago|reply
This is not possible because if this started to happen schools would require you to sign a contract before being allowed to play. The contract will forbid you from suing the school for any injuries. This will then become standard practice.
Football is not going anywhere any time soon.
[+] [-] bryanlarsen|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robmcm|14 years ago|reply
The world club championships would be more interesting, that's for sure.
[+] [-] Adrock|14 years ago|reply