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lotusland
05-23-2012, 05:20 PM
I started to post this rumination in the conference realignment thread but decided to start a new one instead.

I've been thinking about head injuries in the NFL and footbal in general including college. The head injury issue seems to near a tipping point with Junior Seau's sucide and the law suit by former players including Jim McMahon. At very least I think teams and/or the league is going to have liability for players who've suffered multiple head injuries. This may lead to rule changes and perhaps better head gear but even so I would think that there is going to be some reluctance to continue to put players back on the field after a second or third concussion. I could see the players union actually agreeing to some compromise where the league would be indemnified since the union might also want to extend a player's playing career.

However it plays out in the NFL, colleges have a different dynamic. First of all the players don’t get paid at all for risking their health and future earning potential both on and off the field. Isn’t it just as likely that the NCAA and college programs will face law suits in the future related to head injuries and the problems associated with them? HS Football is still king in most areas yet it seems that, in suburbia, it’s not nearly as common for kids to grow up to play football as soccer. When I was a kid in SC we didn’t even have a soccer league and we played organized tackle football from grade school all the way through HS. We also played pick-up tackle football with no pads all the time as well as a game we called “kill the man with the ball”. Now they’ve done away with Pee Wee football in my hometown and I don’t know a single kid in my current neighborhood that plays in a tackle football league. Moms prefer soccer instead and all the kids are playing. I recently saw kids playing a game of pick-up flag football which would have never occurred to me at that age.

My point is that even though Football is still King, I see changes eroding away at the edges of its dominance. Football isn’t football without the hitting but as players have gotten bigger and faster and the collisions more violent the physical costs seem to be increasing and becoming more known. You never know what will happen 5-10 years down the road but I could definitely see a day when the NCAA and or the member institutions decide enough is enough. Granted it will take a lot of changes considering the amount of money at stake but attitudes seem to be changing about the risks.

OldPhiKap
05-23-2012, 06:15 PM
Money is king.

Until another sport generates more of it, football wins in the US.

johnb
05-23-2012, 06:27 PM
One side digression from your rumination.

High school and college football is vital to hundreds of communities. A social event, sure, but also a communal bonding against a vilified other--like war but without anyone dying. Well, they usually don't die, and if people truly become concerned about concussions and long-term brain damage, we could see a sea change. History is full of such sea changes, and I assume football is no exception. IMHO, the change won't be a shift from football to, say, soccer, but a split between the Big Dogs and the Little Dogs, and virtually every Big State U will stay a Big Dog (and the Big Dogs will probably let the Dukes and Vanderbilts stick around; they gotta schedule somebody for homecoming--joke, kidding, we'll be in a bowl next year). But we can't basically fill our stadium and our sports bars and water cooler chats because there aren't enough actual alums or people who just identify with the university.

And I'd say the reason has less to do with entertainment than the social bonding issue. Will Ole Miss win the SEC next year? No way. But as a t-shirt says, "We may lose the game, but we never lose the party." Football is engrained partly because it seems more like war than other sports. At least to Americans--distant, padded, and violent as opposed to the global soccer, which shows actual people who spend an interminable period of time running around to little actual effect (American speaking here, but I do admit that much of war probably also consists of running around to no effect--aside from escaping violence and death).

... I deleted the rest of my digression. Suffice to say, there may be something visceral about football and its weekend importance to a broad swath of America that may keep it stuck.

Here's a cool-looking map that tries to demonstrate allegiance:
http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/Where_the_college_sports_fans_live

Further, while there are annual powers in basketball, the reality is that a couple great players can convert the 80th best college basketball team to the top 10. The same is not true for football, which is more like a huge corporation than a start-up, and that's sorta useful in the Big Dog world of stability.

WiJoe
05-23-2012, 09:56 PM
Will Football always be King?

Yes (sadly).

ns7
05-24-2012, 02:32 AM
Here's a cool-looking map that tries to demonstrate allegiance:
http://digg.com/newsbar/topnews/Where_the_college_sports_fans_live


I know this isn't your main point but I had to comment on your link.

This map is what lead Nate Silver to conclude that Auburn has more fans than Alabama and that Georgia Tech has more fans than Georgia, LSU, or Tennessee.

http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/the-geography-of-college-football-fans-and-realignment-chaos/

Reilly
05-24-2012, 08:18 AM
Money is king.

Until another sport generates more of it, football wins in the US.

What other sports have been considered "king" in the US at one time or another? Baseball? Horse racing? Boxing?

Is soccer king in the rest of the world because it generates the most money? Or does it generate the most money b/c it is king (that is, most popular)? Money *follows* (comes after) kingship, doesn't it? Or money and kingship work together ... but isn't there an underlying popularity apart from money that causes the money to flow?

To answer the question, I don't believe football will always be king. Duke quit playing football 100 years ago b/c it was too dangerous. Will Duke be playing football 200 years from now?

CDu
05-24-2012, 10:07 AM
Always is a very long time. So I'll say "no."

jimsumner
05-24-2012, 10:09 AM
What other sports have been considered "king" in the US at one time or another? Baseball? Horse racing? Boxing?

Is soccer king in the rest of the world because it generates the most money? Or does it generate the most money b/c it is king (that is, most popular)? Money *follows* (comes after) kingship, doesn't it? Or money and kingship work together ... but isn't there an underlying popularity apart from money that causes the money to flow?

To answer the question, I don't believe football will always be king. Duke quit playing football 100 years ago b/c it was too dangerous. Will Duke be playing football 200 years from now?

A bit old but a look at how and why Trinity/Duke dropped football.

http://www.la84foundation.org/SportsLibrary/JSH/JSH1990/JSH1701/jsh1701b.pdf

sporthenry
05-24-2012, 01:13 PM
Grantland had some very interesting articles about this and I'll post them at the end of my comments but I do believe football will run its course. As someone previously brought up, horse racing and boxing used to be some of the most popular sports and have now trailed off. I would think football likens most to boxing in the sense that both sports feature barbaric tendencies. People saw what boxing did to Muhammad Ali and all of a sudden, boxing became a sport with real consequences. I doubt many mothers let their kids box and the supposed beauty of the sport seems lost on many especially since most people have never gained appreciation through actual boxing. I'd like to think this is society's way of moving forward just as we did from gladiator fighting and eye gouging which once ruled the sporting world to boxing and now football which combines hitting with some grace and skill. However, boxing has been hurt by both being seen as barbaric but also having another sport in MMA become more barbaric so boxing is stuck in the middle so I can't say we are progressing totally away from barbaric sports.

Football seemingly won't have this problem of another sport becoming more barbaric but with so many current NFL players coming out against their children playing football, it seems that parents are going to steer their kids away from football after seeing the lives of Chris Henry, Junior Seau, and even Steve Smith (Penn State player who was featured on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel) ruined. So not only will you lose potential players (as I think more affluent players will stay away from the game) but you lose the appreciation that kids and adults gain for the sport by watching/playing on youth football teams. And that doesn't even bring into account the millions of dollars at stake in these current or future lawsuits.

People bring up football as bringing towns and campuses together but it isn't like other sports can't replicate that. Look no further than basketball and the Duke community or Indiana with its high school basketball community which seems to rival any football community in the South or Texas. Perhaps a new sport will take its place or there will be a paradigm shift but I just don't see how football can continue its current trajectory and survive. Many people have hypothesized some things which might save football such as getting rid of helmets or widening the field but such changes will undoubtedly make the sport less exciting than its current form. I do think some development in better helmets will help with players using technology developed for the army but hits to the head will still occur so not sure they save the sport.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7559458/cte-concussion-crisis-economic-look-end-football

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7443714/jonah-lehrer-concussions-adolescents-future-football

OldPhiKap
05-24-2012, 04:45 PM
My Three Kings are Elvis, Budweiser, and Richard Petty.


(Sorry, Arnie).

lotusland
05-24-2012, 06:45 PM
My Three Kings are Elvis, Budweiser, and Richard Petty.


(Sorry, Arnie).

Those are 3 great kings. I'm just glad you didn't include Leonardo Dicaprio or Howard Stern. I think Mike Fratello is my favorite Tsar.

lotusland
06-05-2012, 02:31 PM
Grantland had some very interesting articles about this and I'll post them at the end of my comments but I do believe football will run its course. As someone previously brought up, horse racing and boxing used to be some of the most popular sports and have now trailed off. I would think football likens most to boxing in the sense that both sports feature barbaric tendencies. People saw what boxing did to Muhammad Ali and all of a sudden, boxing became a sport with real consequences. I doubt many mothers let their kids box and the supposed beauty of the sport seems lost on many especially since most people have never gained appreciation through actual boxing. I'd like to think this is society's way of moving forward just as we did from gladiator fighting and eye gouging which once ruled the sporting world to boxing and now football which combines hitting with some grace and skill. However, boxing has been hurt by both being seen as barbaric but also having another sport in MMA become more barbaric so boxing is stuck in the middle so I can't say we are progressing totally away from barbaric sports.

Football seemingly won't have this problem of another sport becoming more barbaric but with so many current NFL players coming out against their children playing football, it seems that parents are going to steer their kids away from football after seeing the lives of Chris Henry, Junior Seau, and even Steve Smith (Penn State player who was featured on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel) ruined. So not only will you lose potential players (as I think more affluent players will stay away from the game) but you lose the appreciation that kids and adults gain for the sport by watching/playing on youth football teams. And that doesn't even bring into account the millions of dollars at stake in these current or future lawsuits.

People bring up football as bringing towns and campuses together but it isn't like other sports can't replicate that. Look no further than basketball and the Duke community or Indiana with its high school basketball community which seems to rival any football community in the South or Texas. Perhaps a new sport will take its place or there will be a paradigm shift but I just don't see how football can continue its current trajectory and survive. Many people have hypothesized some things which might save football such as getting rid of helmets or widening the field but such changes will undoubtedly make the sport less exciting than its current form. I do think some development in better helmets will help with players using technology developed for the army but hits to the head will still occur so not sure they save the sport.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7559458/cte-concussion-crisis-economic-look-end-football

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7443714/jonah-lehrer-concussions-adolescents-future-football

Thanks for the links - very interesting reading. The problem that seems toughest to solve regarding football head injuries is the fact that helmet protection for skull fractures and concussions is inversely related. There seems to be consensus also that the younger the player, the more damaging the head injuries to brain function.
May be all the current hubbub around Junior Seau' s suicide, NFL bounty scandal and the lawsuit concerning almost 1000 ex-NFL players will die down and be forgotten but I really don't see the genie gets stuffed back in the bottle. I expect that data will continue to accumulate which will become impossible to ignore and gradually more youth football programs, and Jr. High and finally HS football to wither and die. Once HS football starts declining it will be just a matter of time until football falls from the pedestal.

"What Would the End of Football Look Like?
An economic perspective on CTE and the concussion crisis
The NFL is done for the year, but it is not pure fantasy to suggest that it may be done for good in the not-too-distant future. How might such a doomsday scenario play out and what would be the economic and social consequences?

"By now we're all familiar with the growing phenomenon of head injuries and cognitive problems among football players, even at the high school level. In 2009, Malcolm Gladwell asked whether football might someday come to an end, a concern seconded recently by Jonah Lehrer.

Before you say that football is far too big to ever disappear, consider the history: If you look at the stocks in the Fortune 500 from 1983, for example, 40 percent of those companies no longer exist. The original version of Napster no longer exists, largely because of lawsuits. No matter how well a business matches economic conditions at one point in time, it's not a lock to be a leader in the future, and that is true for the NFL too. Sports are not immune to these pressures. In the first half of the 20th century, the three big sports were baseball, boxing, and horse racing, and today only one of those is still a marquee attraction.

The most plausible route to the death of football starts with liability suits.1 Precollegiate football is already sustaining 90,000 or more concussions each year. If ex-players start winning judgments, insurance companies might cease to insure colleges and high schools against football-related lawsuits. Coaches, team physicians, and referees would become increasingly nervous about their financial exposure in our litigious society. If you are coaching a high school football team, or refereeing a game as a volunteer, it is sobering to think that you could be hit with a $2 million lawsuit at any point in time. A lot of people will see it as easier to just stay away. More and more modern parents will keep their kids out of playing football, and there tends to be a "contagion effect" with such decisions; once some parents have second thoughts, many others follow suit. We have seen such domino effects with the risks of smoking or driving without seatbelts, two unsafe practices that were common in the 1960s but are much rarer today. The end result is that the NFL's feeder system would dry up and advertisers and networks would shy away from associating with the league, owing to adverse publicity and some chance of being named as co-defendants in future lawsuits."


I can't help but wonder if all the conference realignment shuffling going on for football money may be in vain. I will be very surprised if college football isn't substantially diminished 20-years from now. There is obviously a lot of money to be made yet from college football but is it really wise for a university to spend millions or billions at this juncture in an attempt to cash in? I have feeling that starting to strategically think beyond football may actually be recognized as wiser in the long run.

"Rollinson then leans forward in his chair, as if he's about to tell me a secret. "Look, most of my players aren't going to play ball for a living," he says. "I know they don't want to hear that, but it's the truth. So there's really no reason they should risk messing up their brain." If the sport of football ever dies, it will die from the outside in. The only question now is whether the death has begun."

Some more pertinent articles:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/nfl-bounty-scandal-forces-everyone-to-confront-sports-violent-appeal/2012/03/22/gIQA9cFKUS_story_1.html

The NFL is in a fight for its soul, or maybe for its life. And it knows it.
We won’t grasp for a decade, maybe not for a generation, just how big a problem the NFL has in the wake of its pay-for-injury bounty scandal; which comes on the heels of studies showing the long-term brain damage caused by repetitive blows to the head, even in youth football; which comes on top of lawsuits by former NFL players who feel that premature bad health, mental illness or death may be related to the league’s disregard for their safety.
That’s a mouthful. But there’s a reason. The NFL’s half-century rise to power and profits has always been tied to its limited concern, tantamount to a lack of accountability, for the damage done to its athletes. Violence and danger are a core component of the NFL product. Too much safety is bad for business. Everybody knows it. “North Dallas Forty” came out 33 years ago. We’ve all been enablers. But a business, a sport, is still responsible for itself.
…A sport’s flaw becomes a huge problem if it is also a central driver of its popularity. Of team sports, only football suffers from this combination. The more you remove fear and danger, the more you undercut the NFL’s power. Nobody pays to watch touch football.
The NFL is now at its crossroads. Can the sport find the right rules, the improved equipment, the necessary culture change — like the massacre of the Saints — to create a new balance between terror and some semblance of safety and honorable play?
…The NFL has to change. A lot. Can Lions, Bears, Jaguars and Bengals really change their claws, paws, jaws and stripes?
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/footballs-risk-factor-brain-injuries-raise-concerns-young/story?id=16416737&page=2
So the question of what is happening to the brains of younger athletes looms. "I played football for ten years. I think it's America's greatest sport," said Bailes. "But I think we're at a little bit of a crossroads now."

http://www.npr.org/2012/05/03/151941144/nfl-rocked-by-bounty-scandal-death-of-seau

And, to me, it's not an honest way to go about the issue, because head injuries in the NFL happen because the sport is football, not because of bounties.

http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/story/Head-injury-concerns-arise-after-NFL-bounty/YF9MYzpwgkSG8cHbQcZg1w.cspx

Here in New York State, a new law took effect last September that requires student athletes to be sidelined for at least 24 hours if they’ve suffered a concussion. A doctor must clear them. The law also requires coaches and teachers receive concussion training.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-05-05/sports/ct-spt-0506-haugh-nfl-chicago--20120506_1_bears-linebacker-lance-briggs-flag-football-concussion-education

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1103011-nfl-news-what-saints-bounty-scandal-means-for-future-of-nfl#

What about more recent veterans? The ones former quarterback and current analyst (and non-practicing lawyer) Steve Young says should sue the Saints for injuries incurred during the three years Williams had his bounties? (via NBC Sports)
Young feels there is a good case to be made, since the coaches and staff were the ones who instituted the bounties

http://www.geneveith.com/2012/03/28/nfls-bounty-for-injury-scandal/

Once the general public changes its opinion of the basic nature of a sport, and decides that it’s fundamentally uncomfortable with the values that the game represents, many things can change. Slow but inexorable go together. . . .
A sport’s flaw becomes a huge problem if it is also a central driver of its popularity. Of team sports, only football suffers from this combination. The more you remove fear and danger, the more you undercut the NFL’s power. Nobody pays to watch touch football."