The Future of Football: NYTimes Links Big Tobacco with NFL Concussion Study

bakahump

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What about a bigger field?  Would that help or hurt?
 
I could see both sides. 
 
Bigger field allows for more spacing of the 11 guys thus less traffic and less hits. 
 
Bigger field allows for longer runs and the build up of more speed culminating in bigger hits.
 
Are concussions as big a deal in Canada? A similar size but with still 11 guys might be an answer.  Though I admit scoring will go up alot.
 
Another radical idea.....no more Zone Defenses.  Man to Man everywhere with the safety no further then 10 yards off the line.  Seems like the concussions are mostly from the LBs and S who can get such long running starts and then lead with the head.
 

wutang112878

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I like the bigger field idea, but something needs to be given back to the defense so it doesnt become the Arena league.  Maybe they remove the 'emphasis' on illegal contact and/or allow the defender to contact the receiver for 10 yards. 
 
Eliminating zone is a tricky proposition.  While it wont completely eliminate it, depending on how much larger the field is it would significantly reduce the use of zone.  But if there was no zone, there would never be safety help over the top which could turn the league into a hail mary dominated offense.  You would also be eliminating LBs spying on mobile QBs, so RG3 might suddenly be the best QB in the league.  The more I think about it, just widening the field would be the most effective way to reduce the use of zone
 

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The economics of enlarging the fields are rather problematic.
 

wutang112878

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You dont think each stadium could go out 5 yards on each side?  The bench on the sidelines would be a little cramped but thats it
 

Senator Donut

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You dont think each stadium could go out 5 yards on each side?  The bench on the sidelines would be a little cramped but thats it

No. If there were room for a ten-yard wider field, don't you think owners would have installed more seats by now? You could probably do it in Gillette, which was built for soccer, but not in a majority of other stadiums.
 

Senator Donut

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Also the sideline areas would not be visible from any upper seating areas which were designed for narrower playing fields.
 

Nick Kaufman

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I think most of the NFL stadiums can accommodate soccer; in fact, I can think one which doesn't.
 

Dehere

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rodderick said:
That would also do a lot in terms of diminishing the overall quality of the game, and, consequently, driving away casual viewers. There are plenty of things the NFL values over player safety, most of all revenue. Clamping down on PEDs has done a lot of good for baseball, but the sport's popularity has taken a nose dive when compared to where it was in the 90's.
 
Really depends on how you choose to measure popularity. Attendance is higher now than it was during the PED era. Regional cable ratings are as high or higher. Total revenue and franchise values are at all-time highs. National TV ratings are way off from where they were in the 90s but I think that's largely related to baseball become increasingly localized. Not looking to threadjack, just don't think you can point to baseball's experience as a reason not to clamp down on PEDs.
 

Kremlin Watcher

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I know that this has been discussed elsewhere, but there is a new survey out indicating that half of American parents don't want their sons playing football.
 
If I had a son, he would not be playing football, period. The risks of some form of permanent brain damage from both concussive and sub-concussive impacts is just too great in my view. I understand that there is concussion risk in other sports (apparently, soccer is right up there), but the clear dangers in football would lead me to forbid it outright.
 
Discuss how you think this will affect the future of football. Will this mean fewer affluent and more highly-educated families allow their kids to play football but less-affluent families still will? What are the long-term implications for the sport in light of this news?
 

soxfan121

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Kremlin Watcher said:
I know that this has been discussed elsewhere, but there is a new survey out indicating that half of American parents don't want their sons playing football.
 
If I had a son, he would not be playing football, period. The risks of some form of permanent brain damage from both concussive and sub-concussive impacts is just too great in my view. I understand that there is concussion risk in other sports (apparently, soccer is right up there), but the clear dangers in football would lead me to forbid it outright.
 
Discuss how you think this will affect the future of football. Will this mean fewer affluent and more highly-educated families allow their kids to play football but less-affluent families still will? What are the long-term implications for the sport in light of this news?
 
It has been discussed, at length, with the same thread title twice before. I merged all three threads together. 
 

Kremlin Watcher

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soxfan121 said:
 
It has been discussed, at length, with the same thread title twice before. I merged all three threads together.
Thanks. Couldn't find it.
 
Do you have a thread title? Or maybe merge the above post into the old thread?
 

soxfan121

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Kremlin Watcher said:
Thanks. Couldn't find it.
 
Do you have a thread title? Or maybe merge the above post into the old thread?
 
Both previous threads - helpfully titled "The Future of Football" - have been merged together and this is the result. Page one starts back in 2012. 
 

crystalline

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Kremlin Watcher said:
I know that this has been discussed elsewhere, but there is a new survey out indicating that half of American parents don't want their sons playing football.
 
If I had a son, he would not be playing football, period. The risks of some form of permanent brain damage from both concussive and sub-concussive impacts is just too great in my view. I understand that there is concussion risk in other sports (apparently, soccer is right up there), but the clear dangers in football would lead me to forbid it outright.
 
Discuss how you think this will affect the future of football. Will this mean fewer affluent and more highly-educated families allow their kids to play football but less-affluent families still will? What are the long-term implications for the sport in light of this news?
Quick summary of my view:
Middle class kids will stop playing. Over the next 10-20 years wealthy demographics will stop watching. Like boxing the sport will go on for a long time but it will lose its preeminence as a spectator sport.
Soccer will take its place. Not sure whether Americans will go to MLS or to the Premier league but with the PL getting mainstream airtime on Sat, this ychangeels like a turning point. John Henry got in while the getting was good.

Unlikely possibility: football could eliminate hitting especially at middle/high school levels. I think you have to remove OL hitting to get parents back and I don't think the game survives such a chance.

Ps: I am with you: no way my kids box or play football.
I suspect that many kids will end up healthy even with hits to the head and we will soon learn there is a major genetic predisposition that makes certain individuals get CTE. But I wouldn't take the risk.
 

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I feel like there is going to be regional bias in people's opinion about the future of football.  I grew up in RI and still live in the Northeast.  Yes, people love the Pats now that they have been good, but high school football and college football is just not on the radar in this part of the country like it is elsewhere.  This is the part of the country where football will first go away.
 
I'm more curious what will happen to football in certain parts of the country.  I've never lived in the south or in Texas, but from what you read, hear, view from a far, the connection to the game at the community level is far different then in the Northeast.  I am hard pressed to believe that attitudes towards football in this part of the country will change any time soon.
 
I am most interested in what is going to happen in the Mid-West and in California.  There are some football "talent" rich states with a football history, but my guess is that the game is not as big a part of the culture as it is in the southeast/Texas.  I suspect that the attitude towards football and continued (or not continued) participation at the youth level in these areas will be the real barometer of how or if the game will survive on the national level.
 

johnmd20

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crystalline said:
Quick summary of my view:
Middle class kids will stop playing. Over the next 10-20 years wealthy demographics will stop watching. Like boxing the sport will go on for a long time but it will lose its preeminence as a spectator sport.
Soccer will take its place. Not sure whether Americans will go to MLS or to the Premier league but with the PL getting mainstream airtime on Sat, this ychangeels like a turning point. John Henry got in while the getting was good.

Unlikely possibility: football could eliminate hitting especially at middle/high school levels. I think you have to remove OL hitting to get parents back and I don't think the game survives such a chance.

Ps: I am with you: no way my kids box or play football.
I suspect that many kids will end up healthy even with hits to the head and we will soon learn there is a major genetic predisposition that makes certain individuals get CTE. But I wouldn't take the risk.
 
Soccer will never be even close to as popular as football is today. It won't take football's place. Football will plateau, I believe we're at peak popularity right now in the sport, but the game is still a way for a lot of kids to get into college and, for the best of them, to make a lot of money. In the south and midwest, football is huge. It's a way of life. That's not going to change because a bunch of kids who weren't going anywhere in the sport might stop playing.
 
Soccer will do ok, I do think it will pick up in popularity in the US, but it's not taking the place of football or baseball.
 

EricFeczko

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Kremlin Watcher said:
I know that this has been discussed elsewhere, but there is a new survey out indicating that half of American parents don't want their sons playing football.
 
If I had a son, he would not be playing football, period. The risks of some form of permanent brain damage from both concussive and sub-concussive impacts is just too great in my view. I understand that there is concussion risk in other sports (apparently, soccer is right up there), but the clear dangers in football would lead me to forbid it outright.
 
Discuss how you think this will affect the future of football. Will this mean fewer affluent and more highly-educated families allow their kids to play football but less-affluent families still will? What are the long-term implications for the sport in light of this news?
That survey tells me nothing about the future of football. I have no clue from the article whether or not the half of parents not wanting their children to play football is a larger proportion now than one,five, or ten years ago. In fact, the most telling part of the article (which is terrible) hints at the opposite:
 
 
The poll also showed a generational divide, with 56 percent of those under age 35 saying they'd want their son to play. That's the highest of any demographic group and almost twice the percentage, 29 percent, of those 65 and older.
 

Harry Hooper

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Heard Ted Johnson's reply recently to the "Would you let your son play football?" question. He said, "Yes, but only for certain positions on the field."
 

StupendousMan

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crystalline said:
Quick summary of my view:
Middle class kids will stop playing. Over the next 10-20 years wealthy demographics will stop watching. Like boxing the sport will go on for a long time but it will lose its preeminence as a spectator sport.
Soccer will take its place.
 
The rate of concussions in high-school soccer is about half that of football.  See Table 1 of "Concussions Among United States High School and Collegiate Athletes"
 
     http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2140075/
 

RIFan

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I honestly don't think diminished participation at the youth level will have any effect on the future of football. There will always be thousands of elite level athletes looking to play at the highest level. You can thin the lower levels by a significant amount and still have a deep talent. Beyond that, youth leagues will form that limit or eliminate contact until an age such as 14. That will draw in parents that perceive minimal risk to their child. It'll be hard for many to walk away once contact starts.

Rules will continue to be tightened and equipment will improve. I can see some profound changes that will change the way the game is played, particularly at the line of scrimmage.

The biggest sporting threats to football are soccer and lacrosse. I'm sure that there will be studies that show that the risk of head injury isn't really diminished much, if any, from football. Despite the world wide popularity of soccer, I just can't see it capturing the attention of American's the way football and our other "homegrown" sports do.

The biggest risk is the business practices of the NFL. The relentless pursuit of revenue growth is not sustainable. Eventually, the growth will plateau. Whether they see it coming and adjust to a new financial reality will determine the future of the NFL. Specifically, if people migrate away from traditional cable and satellite delivery to more of an a la cart mode of content selection, the bottomless piles of cash ESPN and the networks throw at the league will dry up. The NFL has been slow to capitalize with online revenue the way MLB has. DVR's make commercials obsolete, so that revenue source is at risk as well. If they don't react properly, they'll be team bankruptcies and fewer potential owners willing to buy in. The right convergence of circumstances could lead to the folding of some teams. The NFL isn't bullet proof like they seem to believe they are.
 

crystalline

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johnmd20 said:
 
Soccer will never be even close to as popular as football is today. It won't take football's place. Football will plateau, I believe we're at peak popularity right now in the sport, but the game is still a way for a lot of kids to get into college and, for the best of them, to make a lot of money. In the south and midwest, football is huge. It's a way of life. That's not going to change because a bunch of kids who weren't going anywhere in the sport might stop playing.
 
Soccer will do ok, I do think it will pick up in popularity in the US, but it's not taking the place of football or baseball.
That's what people said about boxing and horse racing. Sports gain and lose in popularity over time.

If I were John Henry now I'd be investing in a soccer team, not a football team.

The key to big sports success is appeal to a wealthy and large demographic. My prediction is that football will slowly lose the support of the middle class because of injury risk, decline in child participation, and hits making viewers turn it off.

I grew up in an area where my 7th grade football team had too few helmets for all the kids that wanted to play (50-100) so they were exchanged on the sidelines, and where high school football led off the sports pages each weekend. I think that kind of enthusiasm will fade with time as participation falls.

But I'm not a sports industry analyst so take this as one person's opinion.
 

TheRooster

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My son and his buddies like them both but FIFA15 gets more love on the XBOX than Madden14.  None of them play football and most play soccer.  The most serious soccer players watched the Revs playoffs games.  I am 100% convinced that there is a legit link between what you play and what you watch.  I think it lasts as I'd still rather watch a Clips-Kings game than an Eagles-Ravens game and I played a lot of hoop and no organized football.  The advent of organized flag football will delay the slide as that has become suprisingly popular in the Boston suburbs.
 

Ralphwiggum

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Eh, I think that is highly variable from person to person.  I loved playing hoop when I was a kid (and still love shooting hoops and playing the occasional pick up game if my knees can take it) but cannot stand the NBA and don't really care about college hoop either.  OTOH I never played organized football beyond Pop Warner and I can sit and watch pretty much any NFL game from start to finish.  I never played baseball beyond little league but love watching the Sox. 
 
My 12 year old daughter and 9 year old son both play soccer and love it, but both also love watching the Pats with me on TV.  I wouldn't know where to go to find soccer on TV and have no interest.  Maybe some day they'll find it on their own but right now watching sports on TV is as much about hanging out with me and enjoying the experience together, so that means baseball and football almost exclusively.
 
Soccer may supplant football someday but we are talking an extremely long horizon for that, even with all of the issues that exist in football.  Even with all of the issues we know about football, we are all still watching in record numbers.  As someone mentioned up thread, so long as it remains a viable path to a college education and so long as there are television ratings driving huge player salaries at the pro level, enough people will play to keep the league viable.  Those things may change eventually, but again we are talking many years from now.
 
In terms of what I would allow my own kids to do, my 9 year old has not expressed any interest in playing football (yet) and I would never suggest to him that he play, but I am dreading the day he brings it up.  Even with all of the information out there I am honestly not sure what I would do.  I would probably delay as long as I could, until maybe 14 years old, but at some point I would probably relent.  There is a part of me that thinks I am sick for thinking that and I should forbid it no matter what, but if I am being honest with myself I probably wouldn't.
 

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crystalline said:
That's what people said about boxing and horse racing. Sports gain and lose in popularity over time.
 
I question how relevant the decline of boxing and horse racing actually is to this discussion.  The hype machines of ESPN, the entire internet, twitter, etc... did not exist when these sports declined.  People got their information from older forms of media, the 24/7 news cycle did not exist, the access we have to the athletes we have today did not exist, the way we conversed and learned about sports was just different.  
 
I don't think all of this means that the NFL won't or can't eventually decline, I just think the situation now vs. the situation then is so different that it's may not be relevant.  
 

crystalline

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Yes, and you have to wonder how much of the decline in boxing and horse racing was due to technology changes: people used to go to the horse track, and once they started watching sports on TV the horse race didn't translate well.

I could stretch that a little bit to describe soccer today: 20 years ago you rooted for your local teams and got your news from the local Boston Globe sports section. There was little opportunity to watch far away teams. Now the internet makes it possible to follow not just far away baseball teams but British and Italian soccer teams. And those initally sparse followers led to Arsenal and ManU and Barca shirts on the street, and now NBC picking up games... We may be at the beginning of a new era in sports viewership dominated by far away teams in new sports, driven by cable TV that's in search of DVR-resistant programming, and the Internet.
But again- I'm just one guy with one opinion.
 

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Freddy Linn said:
My son played flag and now, having just turned 11, wants to play tackle.  I haven't given him an answer.
 
And lacrosse is the sport to watch out for.
 
I wonder about lacrosse. I was exposed to the efforts to expand professional lacrosse west, and while there are a lot of high-level positives, I wonder whether it's ever going to get past the branding of "elitist white boy prep school sport." (Yes, I know that's not entirely accurate. Yes, I know Jim Brown played lacrosse at Syracuse. Yes, I know college football was once branded an "elitist white boy prep school sport." Etc.) But I think the public perception of the Lax Bro is going to make that a very tough sell among the fastest growing demographics in the US, and I am not entirely sure that I would invest in professional lacrosse if given the opportunity. (not that it matters, but I played lacrosse at a reasonably good high school level, so I like the sport a lot, but I don't know how marketable it is)
 

dcmissle

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Boxing and horse racing demonstrate that nothing is forever. But football has what those sports didn't -- an inpenetrable fortress, every state below the Mason Dixon line, extending to the West Coast. There is God, the military and football -- and who knows the order?

The major demographic shift of the last 50 years has squeezed population south and west. Football is dying no time soon. The arc from Florida through Texas can keep the NFL supplied.
 

soxfan121

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dcmissle said:
The major demographic shift of the last 50 years has squeezed population south and west. Football is dying no time soon. The arc from Florida through Texas can keep the NFL supplied.
 
Well, that and international expansion. 
 

Valek123

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It's not very often I can post something from my old stomping grounds but I found a pretty cool article today from UNH on helmetless tackling drills along with some other pretty cool things the university is studying in practice and games related to concussions.
 
P.S. they are also on ESPN2 tonight at 8pm in the Division I football quarterfinals after going 11-1 this season.
 

JayMags71

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johnmd20 said:
 
I'm not sure about that. The owners are making the most money by the skyrocketing values of their teams. Yeah, the annual revenue isn't bad but these franchises are near a billion dollars or more. If the league is on the downtrend, no matter how much the owners make right now, their pockets won't be fat if the value of their franchise drops significantly.
 
edit - The Patriots are worth 2.6 billion dollars. Worth 172 million in 1994. That is a pretty solid growth rate. And that is where the money is made for the owners. If the NFL gets weaker as the years pass, the owners are going to get shredded.
I think we're in the tail end of the peak of NFL popularity, and this era might be where we see the first ticks of a down turn. Consider:

A number of prominent current and ex-players (among them Aikman, Brees, and Farvre) are on record as saying they won't let their kids play football.

Concussion lawsuits are on the rise.

Numbers aren't conclusive, but a lot of reports are that they suggest participation is on the decline.

I believe many owners see the writing on the wall: football may be slowly dying, and this power grab by Goodell is all about keeping the money spigot flowing for the owners.
 

nighthob

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JayMags71 said:
I think we're in the tail end of the peak of NFL popularity, and this era might be where we see the first ticks of a down turn. Consider:

A number of prominent current and ex-players (among them Aikman, Brees, and Farvre) are on record as saying they won't let their kids play football.

Concussion lawsuits are on the rise.

Numbers aren't conclusive, but a lot of reports are that they suggest participation is on the decline.

I believe many owners see the writing on the wall: football may be slowly dying, and this power grab by Goodell is all about keeping the money spigot flowing for the owners.
The problem isn't the voluntary participation numbers, it's the increasing avalanche of data regarding pre-adolescent and adolescent head trauma injuries that are going to lead to federal regulations on youth participation in football. The NFL is so far behind the curve on this issue that I'm now going to be shocked if it doesn't happen by the decade's end. They should have been working on a solution to this issue five years ago, but under the Artless Roger they've continued blithely apace, and I no longer see any way out for them. And that's if they actually addressed the issue, which they haven't.
 

wutang112878

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nighthob said:
The problem isn't the voluntary participation numbers, it's the increasing avalanche of data regarding pre-adolescent and adolescent head trauma injuries that are going to lead to federal regulations on youth participation in football. The NFL is so far behind the curve on this issue that I'm now going to be shocked if it doesn't happen by the decade's end. They should have been working on a solution to this issue five years ago, but under the Artless Roger they've continued blithely apace, and I no longer see any way out for them. And that's if they actually addressed the issue, which they haven't.
 
There just isnt a solution that isnt a non-flag fooball solution, especially when we start talking about CTE which we are learning might be a bigger problem than concussions.  Stopping this trauma is basically like trying to find a way to go on a bumper car ride with a jar of pickles but not allowing the pickles to knock around inside the jar.  If you are off the bumper car then its not a problem, but there is no way to do it on the ride.  The NFL has capitalism on their side because everyone knows they would pay a pretty penny for a concussion and CTE free helmet but even with the economic motivation those just dont exist.
 

crystalline

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Personally I think the NFL should be heading towards a semi-flag football scenario. Or rather, a rugby scenario. Rugby manages to have a lot of violence with far fewer concussions.

I think the NFL's popularity has more to do with Sunday appointment viewing than the violence inherent to the system. I think the NFL could evolve to a popular sport with much lower concussion risk.
 

nighthob

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wutang112878 said:
There just isnt a solution that isnt a non-flag fooball solution, especially when we start talking about CTE which we are learning might be a bigger problem than concussions.  Stopping this trauma is basically like trying to find a way to go on a bumper car ride with a jar of pickles but not allowing the pickles to knock around inside the jar.  If you are off the bumper car then its not a problem, but there is no way to do it on the ride.  The NFL has capitalism on their side because everyone knows they would pay a pretty penny for a concussion and CTE free helmet but even with the economic motivation those just dont exist.
I actually meant that more cynically, that the NFL could have forestalled federal regulations if they'd been in the forefront of dealing with the problem. But they've been ignoring it like it was just going to go away, and the solution is absolutely going to end up being something like flag football for kids under the age of 16 (if I had to make a guess).
 

EricFeczko

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nighthob said:
The problem isn't the voluntary participation numbers, it's the increasing avalanche of data regarding pre-adolescent and adolescent head trauma injuries that are going to lead to federal regulations on youth participation in football. The NFL is so far behind the curve on this issue that I'm now going to be shocked if it doesn't happen by the decade's end. They should have been working on a solution to this issue five years ago, but under the Artless Roger they've continued blithely apace, and I no longer see any way out for them. And that's if they actually addressed the issue, which they haven't.
Ummm....huh?

There's certainly evidence that links post-pubertal mild head trauma to dementia . I haven't seen much evidence that pre-pubertal, mild head trauma causes any form of dementia save a few case reports of traumatic brain injury. However, head injuries in young children are likely a huge risk factor for mood and psychotic disorders.
 
 
crystalline said:
Personally I think the NFL should be heading towards a semi-flag football scenario. Or rather, a rugby scenario. Rugby manages to have a lot of violence with far fewer concussions.

I think the NFL's popularity has more to do with Sunday appointment viewing than the violence inherent to the system. I think the NFL could evolve to a popular sport with much lower concussion risk.
Does this have to do with the fact that America doesn't follow rugby? I don't know if rugby (in and of itself) is less risky than the NFL.

We need to keep in mind that the reason we see so many football players with CTE, is because american football players are studied to find CTE. We have no clue what the prevalence of CTE or other dementias are in football, hockey, or rugby players.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4324991/
 

nighthob

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CTE has been found in hockey players, boxers, and pro wrestlers, as well. I'm not aware of any rugby players that have been diagnosed with it, but I'm also not aware that anyone's dissected the brains of deceased rugby players to see.

Also, federal regulation of youth football isn't going to be because of CTE issues (though those are certainly part of the whole, it can't be diagnosed while the victim's alive), but because of all the health problems that are associated with repeat concussions.
 

The Gray Eagle

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There won't be a shortage of gladiators for our bread and circuses for decades, that's not a concern of the NFL. There will be loads of people willing to play NFL football for the foreseeable future. Maybe the level of play will fall off, but how would that even be noticeable, other than more huge seasons from a few star players? Most people agree that the level of play is higher now than in say the 1970s, but fans loved the NFL in the 1970s. It was great (and in my own opinion more entertaining than it is now.) Level of play doesn't matter as long as the game seems fair. College football is really popular, even though everyone knows the level of play is below the NFL.
 
And fans are already okay with lots of concussions for players, and with players regularly dying in their 50s. The NFL knows this. The only issue is, what if it gets worse? Or what if people pay more attention to what's going on now? 
 
There eventually will be a line where the damage to players will be too much for a lot of fans to stomach, but where is that line? The NFL is really dominant in American culture. If you've grown up watching the NFL your whole life, it's not easy to cut it out. Fans who've grown up with the NFL and are into won't be able to quit it without a real effort, and how many are really going to make that effort? You've been a big fan your whole life, but now you're going to stop following it. Okay. You're going to drop your fantasy leagues that you've played with all your friends, and drop out of the office pool that you've always played, and stop checking the news on the web, and skip the Super Bowl party that even your non-sports friends are going to? Sure, some people will if they feel strongly about it. How many though?
 
I think this is a good book that raises a lot of interesting points about football and its problems:
http://www.amazon.com/Against-Football-Fans-Reluctant-Manifesto/dp/1494558343
 
But it seems like it's going to be a long time before any significant number of fans look at the NFL that way. 
 
I think the NFL is basically the worst-- a bad thing run by terrible people, that damages severely the people who play it. But if you grow up with it, you need to make a real conscious effort to walk away from its cultural dominance, and hardly anyone who likes football is going to do that. Hardly anyone even wants to hear about it being talked about that way. It's many decades away away from just fading into irrelevance like boxing.
 

nighthob

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Even boxing has taken a long time to fade. But boxing has the advantage of an international talent pool, while the NFL really only has the US, and mostly the south and west at that. And the decline in play is going to happen because in the near future kids won't be allowed to start playing full contact football until their last year or two of high school.
 

Quintanariffic

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JayMags71 said:
I think we're in the tail end of the peak of NFL popularity, and this era might be where we see the first ticks of a down turn. Consider:

A number of prominent current and ex-players (among them Aikman, Brees, and Farvre) are on record as saying they won't let their kids play football.

Concussion lawsuits are on the rise.

Numbers aren't conclusive, but a lot of reports are that they suggest participation is on the decline.

I believe many owners see the writing on the wall: football may be slowly dying, and this power grab by Goodell is all about keeping the money spigot flowing for the owners.
 
It's pretty well conclusive at this point.  New industry study out this week on youth (ages 6-17) participation in sports - see results below.  Most participation rates are down (lazy fucking kids), but football (touch and tackle) is getting hit hardest among the major sports.  Though the crazy rating of the HoF game the other night may imply otherwise, we are at or close to peak football in this country - at least relative to other sports.  Football is likely to be king of the hill and see its revenues continue to increase for some period of time, but sort of like in a US circa 1970 way - still on top, but trouble signs emerging.
 
(sorry for the shitty formatting)
                            2009     2014    %change
Baseball               7,012    ,711     -4.3%
Basketball          10,404   9,694   -6.8%
Field hockey           438      370   -15.5%
Football (tackle)  3,962   3,254    -17.9%
Football (touch)  3,005   2,032    -32.4%
Gymnastics         2,510   2,809     11.9%
Ice hockey              517     743     43.7%
Lacrosse                 624    804      28.8%
Rugby                     150     301    100.7%
Soccer (indoor)    2,456   2,172    -11.6%
Soccer (outdoor)   8,360  7,656       -8.4%
Softball (fast-pitch)   988   1,004      1.6%
Softball (slow-pitch) 1,827 1,622    -11.2%
Track and field        2,697  2,417   -10.4%
Volleyball (court)      3,420  2,680  -21.6%
Volleyball (sand/beach) 532   652    22.6%
Wrestling                    1,385   805    -41.9%
 

pappymojo

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Interesting numbers. I am curious to see the impact of school budgets on those numbers.
 

djhb20

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Where are those numbers from? Can you give a source/link or something? (It's not that I actually think you just made them up, but without a source, they are indistinguishable from made-up numbers.)
 

Super Nomario

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Quintanariffic said:
It's pretty well conclusive at this point.  New industry study out this week on youth (ages 6-17) participation in sports - see results below.  Most participation rates are down (lazy fucking kids), but football (touch and tackle) is getting hit hardest among the major sports.  Though the crazy rating of the HoF game the other night may imply otherwise, we are at or close to peak football in this country - at least relative to other sports.  Football is likely to be king of the hill and see its revenues continue to increase for some period of time, but sort of like in a US circa 1970 way - still on top, but trouble signs emerging.
 
(sorry for the shitty formatting)
What's the source for these numbers?
 

grsharky7

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nighthob said:
The problem isn't the voluntary participation numbers, it's the increasing avalanche of data regarding pre-adolescent and adolescent head trauma injuries that are going to lead to federal regulations on youth participation in football. The NFL is so far behind the curve on this issue that I'm now going to be shocked if it doesn't happen by the decade's end. They should have been working on a solution to this issue five years ago, but under the Artless Roger they've continued blithely apace, and I no longer see any way out for them. And that's if they actually addressed the issue, which they haven't.
 
This is the first year in a long time where I have not been on a junior high or varsity coaching staff.  Our numbers are still very high at our school, however the beat is starting to get louder as far as younger kids and contact.  I know from talking to our peewee teams they are seeing a dramatic drop in numbers and the reason is concussion issues.  I had several reasons for dropping out of the coaching ranks this year, but concussions was one of them.  I just don't want the responsibility of looking out for these serious head injuries.  Last season we had a kid who was concussed, but he   never showed any symptoms or said anything to the staff (he was a lineman and there was no jarring hit or anything that would have tipped us off). His parents emailed the school and said he was concussed and he was going to a specialist.  When I talked to the mother she was miffed at her son for not telling us about his symptoms, but she was also a little huffy about contact in practice.  For the record we have tried to do away with as much unnecessary contact as possible, however you can't get rid of it altogether obviously.   I made my decision that day that I was going to be done after the season, I don't want to be there when a kid goes down for good.  I feel like I'm not the only person who feels that way either.  
 
My fiancee and I have had several long talks about if we have kids, should they be allowed to play football.  As of now I'm in the "No" camp and so is she.  
 

crystalline

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Good posts here. "At or near peak football" is exactly right. How long it takes to fade is the real question.


Re: rugby, I was thinking about how the ruck evolved into American football line play. It's been frequently mentioned that offensive linemen get hit in the head almost every play. If all the linemen start off already engaged with each other, perhaps that's one way to reduce head impact. It changes football, but I think we can imagine ruck-like lines that don't turn the game upside down. No one really watches OL anyway.
 

DJnVa

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The concussion talk is good stuff--any way it can get its own thread?
 

Jimbodandy

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crystalline said:
Good posts here. "At or near peak football" is exactly right. How long it takes to fade is the real question.


Re: rugby, I was thinking about how the ruck evolved into American football line play. It's been frequently mentioned that offensive linemen get hit in the head almost every play. If you make all the lineman start engaged with each other, perhaps that's one way to reduce head impact.
 
Rugby is the most boring shit known to man.  Watch 10 minutes of it, even played at its highest level, and compare it to a Jacksonville-Tampa regular season game.
 
They'll tweak the NFL rules, and eventually at all levels, to try to reduce the targeting of the head.  Hopefully it makes a big enough impact to reduce concussions significantly.  They won't go the rugby route, unless they want to go poor.