"League of Denial" documentary

[CS85]

I should admit that hand-in-hand with this goes the absolute hatred I have for the football/NFL culture in America these days. I can't stand the "too big to fail" and "we're better than everything else" and "other sports exists?" attitude given off by a large portion of football fans.

Yes. Thank you. I finally got sick and tired of the NFL being so all-consuming and above the law that, when combined with the moral dilemma of being part of its commerce machine, it was easy to pull the plug. The tidal wave of outrage that a postseason A's game would dare to move a regular-season Raiders game to Sunday night on the West Coast was the last straw or last straws. Just so ridiculous. Life does not stop and start at the NFL's convenience, to borrow a chestnut.

I can only hope that was a Lebowski reference.

I know it means absolutely nothing, but on Around the Horn today the 2nd segment of the show talked about the Redskins name change and League in Denial and no points were awarded to anyone on either category. /useless observation

[Gothamite]

It's a theory, and not one I have a lot of evidence to back up (or refute), but I still believe the best thing the NFL could do to promote player safety is to eliminate the hardshell helmet.

Take away the power of the helmet to be a weapon. And take away the power of the helmet to make a player feel invincible. I think it would immediately make the game safer.

Been saying it for years. That's the only way football will survive the next several decades.

[AJM]

A great doc...plenty of great info and context on the matter but I still do not think the "Concussion issue" will kill the NFL. I am sure steps will continue to be made to address equipment, player safety, education, etc...in effort to make the game "safer" but the NFL isn't going anywhere because there will always be fans and men that (despite fully being aware of the risks) will still want to play.

I have always viewed concussions as an occupational hazard no different than law enforcement/police that carry weapons and wear vests knowing that one day they might get shot it...they choose to put themselves in that line of work and the risks associated with it. Even if you take away the helmets it's still gonna happen sooner or later and who is to say that it will lessen the frequency of them happening. While the concussion spotlight is shining brightest on the NFL, they happen everywhere regardless of the use of protective headgear (soccer, baseball, hockey, boxing, etc...).

Personal views aside, the doc is a definite watch!

[Gothamite]

I have always viewed concussions as an occupational hazard no different than law enforcement/police that carry weapons and wear vests knowing that one day they might get shot it...they choose to put themselves in that line of work and the risks associated with it.

Where that analogy breaks down is that while a certain amount of risk is a side effect of that job, the very act of being a police officer itself is not inherently dangerous on its own.

A cop doesn't get physically harmed merely by walking the beat. His risk of heart disease isn't increased by just opening the door of his black-and-white. The shield on his chest isn't going to give him lung cancer.

What we're starting to understand is that the very act of playing football, the way it is intended to be played, is correlated with a medical condition that causes early onset dementia and other mental health problems. I'm having a hard time thinking of any other profession in the United States of which that is true.

[-kj]

Boxing?

[marble21]

Gutted I can't watch it as I am in an "unsuitable region."

My opinion on the whole matter though, is that as long as people still watch the NFL on TV, companies will pay extortionately for commercials, which means TV stations will pay extortionate fees for coverage rights and this money will trickle down through the NFL resulting in the players becoming multi-millionaires. With the chance of becoming insanely rich, kids will continue to want to play football and the cycle continues on.

As long as the NFL remains a great spectacle for TV, nothing will change.

[Gothamite]

There's a great line in the doc where the man who discovered the CTE connection is told that if just 10% of mothers decide to not let their kids play, then the NFL is over.

I don't know if that's true, but if colleges are sued over CTE deaths, or insurance companies decide to stop covering schools because of the possibility of such lawsuits, then the NFL's feeder system will dry up pretty quickly.

[marble21]

There's a great line in the doc where the man who discovered the CTE connection is told that if just 10% of mothers decide to not let their kids play, then the NFL is over.

[STL FANATIC]

There's a great line in the doc where the man who discovered the CTE connection is told that if just 10% of mothers decide to not let their kids play, then the NFL is over.

I don't know if that's true, but if colleges are sued over CTE deaths, or insurance companies decide to stop covering schools because of the possibility of such lawsuits, then the NFL's feeder system will dry up pretty quickly.

Don't forget high schools. At some point I'd imagine the schools would decide it doesn't make sense for them to be spending their very limited budget on an extra curricular activity with not only so much legal liability but a real chance of having a negative life impact on so many of it's participants.

And again, I'm not talking just about the big hits, big injuries, and such. That discussion already exists as those get more publicity. But I mean the small repeated hits that almost every player on the field deals with.

[The_Admiral]

The joke sitting on the tee here is that public high schools already have a negative life impact on students, but in all seriousness, it makes no sense whatsoever for them to sponsor high school football. How can you tell a 15-year-old to learn how to do algebra and then tell him to repeatedly bang his head into a hard object? Isn't this, even without getting into insurance liability, a really bad idea? Maybe schools will rent out their football stadiums to independent programs, but this status quo won't last forever.

[STL FANATIC]

Gutted I can't watch it as I am in an "unsuitable region."

My opinion on the whole matter though, is that as long as people still watch the NFL on TV, companies will pay extortionately for commercials, which means TV stations will pay extortionate fees for coverage rights and this money will trickle down through the NFL resulting in the players becoming multi-millionaires. With the chance of becoming insanely rich, kids will continue to want to play football and the cycle continues on.

As long as the NFL remains a great spectacle for TV, nothing will change.

But kids won't get to make these decisions always. I know that my (hypothetical future) kids will never play (real, organized) football so long as they're my dependent. And you're not going to get a ton of great college players who just decided to start playing when they're 18. Not to mention the fact that most kids in that situation won't start playing at all.

What you're going to see, at least at first, are kids growing up in poverty who play because it could be their big ticket. Those are likely to be the families that allowed it, I think.

Families that need the big ticket will be less likely to be motivated by the monetary aspect.

And that's going to limit the talent pool. And the limited talent pool will lead to a lesser product which will lead to less revenue. Which will ultimately lead to it not being the big ticket for a poor kid that it once was.

At some point I think we'll see a lot of these stud athletes start choosing other sports again. I know some people just LOVE football. But really, if you're a stud baseball and football player and money is a factor in your decision to keep playing, why wouldn't you choose baseball? More rounds to get drafted in. More likely to get guaranteed money as a draft pick. More likely to be able to continue to play professionally even if you're never good enough to crack the highest level.

I never really connected the two like that before, but football's head trauma epidemic could be baseball's comeback into pop culture. (That last part is important because despite perception, baseball doesn't really need a comeback. It's doing exceedingly well.)

[bosrs1]

Can't wait for baseball to move back to No. 1 in the public mind. So tired of football over saturation everywhere (press, media, office cooler, etc...) for a physically and mentally destructive sport that is really only played 16x a year.

[smith03]

maybe team handball will finally get a chance in America, that is a great sport for tv

[The_Admiral]

Team handball is like that time your 4th grade gym teacher made up a sport.

It's hard to say baseball is doing exceedingly well when ratings and attendance get lower and lower. I know World Series ratings have been a problem, but it's been in the last two or three years that attendance just hasn't looked like it did from, say, 2002-2010. There certainly isn't the buzz around the game that there was in 2003-2004, but I understand that was a once-in-a-generation confluence. Absent the death of football as we know it, I see baseball continuing down this path of highly regionalized fandom and apathy elsewhere. It's bat hockey, basically.

[bosrs1]

Not sure what makes you think baseball is on any kind of decline. Sure ratings for the series have been off the last couple of years but that has more to do with lackluster matchups with teams no one cares about like the Giants rather than any systemic issue. And attendance has been off slightly but a fairly large part of that was the loss of a pair of 55,000+ seat stadia in NY and a major recession. Revenues have continued to grow despite that however.

And it's not like the NFL hasn't seen its own decline in attendance over the same period with teams like Oakland and Jacksonville having to tarp significant portions of their stadiums, the relaxation of the blackout rules, and continued blackouts in several markets.

[The_Admiral]

"Not sure what makes you think baseball is on any sort of decline other than two major quantitative indicators of possible decline."

[smith03]

Team handball is like that time your 4th grade gym teacher made up a sport.

It's hard to say baseball is doing exceedingly well when ratings and attendance get lower and lower. I know World Series ratings have been a problem, but it's been in the last two or three years that attendance just hasn't looked like it did from, say, 2002-2010. There certainly isn't the buzz around the game that there was in 2003-2004, but I understand that was a once-in-a-generation confluence. Absent the death of football as we know it, I see baseball continuing down this path of highly regionalized fandom and apathy elsewhere. It's bat hockey, basically.

I would rather watch team handball than baseball. it is a fast pace game

[FiddySicks]

Team handball is like that time your 4th grade gym teacher made up a sport.

Isn't that how basketball was invented?

[GFB]

If we're talking about sports that will eventually replace football many years down the road, I think the main two competitors are soccer and lacrosse. Lacrosse has that physicality like hockey and football, it's growing, and it appears to have that "cool" factor among the kiddos. What hurts it is the lack of a professional league of any real influence and the lack of cash and fame to be made at the pro level. Soccer has the cash/fame, a growing pro league here in the States, and the youth support (for both genders). Going against soccer is the "soccer is boring/no scoring" whiners, the "diva/sissy" reputation (which may be more prevalent among the baby boomers than Gen X or Gen Y), and soccer isn't exactly concussion-free either.

However, I have to believe that football will evolve either in the rules of the game and/or from an equipment/technology standpoint to relive the majority of the concussion concerns. There's too much money and passion for the game of football for it to fade away in the next 50 years.

[Evil G]

Can't wait for baseball to move back to No. 1 in the public mind.

It will happen by 2016. That or Andrew Wiggins will bring the NBA back to it's heyday in the 90s.