Hypothetical: sometime soon, football has no value

[The Funster]

There is a storm brewing on the horizon for the NFL. Class action lawsuits are being filed and these lawsuits could cripple the NFL.

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/story/...rt-piling-up-nfl-could-some-day-face-end-game

Of course, what hurts the NFL, hurts college football. It's not hard to imagine that by the time these TV contracts cycle for renewal that the football landscape could be completely different and possibly...nonexistent. Maybe the game goes away but more likely the contact is dumbed down and the game doesn't quite resemble what we see (and hear) today. What if athletes shy away from football and intead pursue other sports that have less of a long term impact on their health and well being?

Is it possible that football may no longer drive the bus? Is it possible that basketball will once again be king? I think that scenario is a very real possibility and I wonder who amongst the decision makers is even considering what the concussion syndrome lawsuits and the conditions that make them possible will have as an effect on all of football.

I think it's interesting to view the conference alignment madness through this lens. Is it possible that right now we are in the midst of the peak of college football and it's effect on the college landscape?

 

[UConnJim]

Functor - this is interesting. As a professional investor, my experience has been that merger manias in industries happen when fundamentals are peaking, not when fundamentals are at the trough: banks in late 90s, tech in late 90s, metals and mining over the past 5 years, ...

Personally, I don't think football is going away anytime soon, but I think there could be substantial changes.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I think the players are going to lose the class action. It is virtually impossible for any ex-player under the age of 70 to claim they didn't know the risks of the sport when they played it.

I think you will see improvements to helmets, which could impact the game. I personally think football is a very primitive game, and 100 years from now people will look back on football as evidence of how backward we were during this time.

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

I think the players are going to lose the class action. It is virtually impossible for any ex-player under the age of 70 to claim they didn't know the risks of the sport when they played it.

I don't think that's what they're going after the NFL for. It's more that the NFL knew the risks associated with certain kinds of hits and didn't do enough/did nothing to properly assess penalties and suspensions, or implement helmet and pad rules in the past to protect players against those risks. How much liability they could be held for, I don't know, but the whole, they knew what they were signing up for, isn't a 100% guaranteed exclusion from liability if the NFL ignored known risks.

 

[UConnSportsGuy]

I think you need to take a trip down South. College Football isn't just a sport, it is a way of living. That isn't changing anytime soon.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I don't think that's what they're going after the NFL for. It's more that the NFL knew the risks associated with certain kinds of hits and didn't do enough/did nothing to properly assess penalties and suspensions, or implement helmet and pad rules in the past to protect players against those risks. How much liability they could be held for, I don't know, but the whole, they knew what they were signing up for, isn't a 100% guaranteed exclusion from liability if the NFL ignored known risks.

Maybe not 100%, but it is a large percentage. The NFL players have to prove not only that information was withheld, but that they would have acted differently if they had known the additional information. No one put a gun to their head and made them play football.

The other problem with the lawsuit is that even if the NFL loses, they are going to claim that any concussions were the result of over a decade of hits by the players in question, and that the players need to sue their college, high school and pop warner leagues too to recover a percentage of any potential liability.

 

[CL82]

I think you need to take a trip down South. College Football isn't just a sport, it is a way of living. That isn't changing anytime soon.

At least until everyone start wearing those flag football belts.

 

[ZooCougar]

When exactly was basketball ever king?

 

[junglehusky]

So... does this mean the USA wins the FIFA world cup in ~20-30 years?

 

[traitor71]

There is a storm brewing on the horizon for the NFL. Class action lawsuits are being filed and these lawsuits could cripple the NFL.

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/story/...rt-piling-up-nfl-could-some-day-face-end-game


Is it possible that football may no longer drive the bus? Is it possible that basketball will once again be king?

Not on the collegiate level. The product just isn't good enough.

 

[alexrgct]

We are generations away from football falling from atop its perch as the king of college sports. Plural.

 

[RioDog]

I think the NFL could suffer serious damage and have little effect on the stature and popularity of college football. Sure its great for athletes to have a shot at a big paycheck in the league, but if the NFL ceased to exist I would still be a rabid college ball fan. I stopped watching the NFL 20 years ago. And wasn´t college ball extremely popular in the US long before the big paychecks existed? I don´t see the popularity of college ball doing anything but grow, almost regardless of what happens to the NFL. Who knows? The demise of pro ball might bring more interest and eyeballs to college and high school football.

 

[Waquoit]

NFL will never go away. College football might have trouble as parents keep their kids from playing football.

 

[alexrgct]

NFL will never go away. College football might have trouble as parents keep their kids from playing football.

Maybe not affluent parents, but the kids who comprise the overwhelming majority of players who play at the elite college level don't come from that kind of background.

 

[upstater]

I was thinking the reverse of this. As the NFL gets richer, the prospect of starting a farm system becomes more affordable. and the NFL will now see all the riches going to college football as a possible new lucrative market. Think about it. It's not that fans will flock to minor league football. Rather, it's that the NFL can gut college football by taking away the most popular players. That money has to go to somewhere. Believe it or not, the NFL might become even more popular.