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Mark Twain once quipped that reports of his death were greatly exaggerated. But what of the NFL?
In the Time magazine issue of Sept. 18, Sean Gregory writes on page 25 that a “dark shadow” has been cast over professional football's future. Why? Because of the Colin Kaepernick “boycott” and because of the brain damage done to so many who have played the game. Add to that the annual allegations of wife/girlfriend beatings, and you have an unsavory product. Well, if not unsavory, at least the collective cause of a 9% drop in last year's TV ratings. Bang.
Avoiding the politics of the Kaepernick affair, it seems unlikely to me that the NFL will sink because of the young man's behavior. When the unemployed QB came to Baltimore recently to audition for a back-up job, he is reported to have said that he would be willing to stand for the national anthem if that would help. But no teddy bear. The league seems to have decided it can do without controversy.
As for the brain injury, the results of a recent JAMA report are startling. In the cases of the examination of 110 brains from deceased NFL players, fully 99% had a degenerative brain disease. It seems pretty clear that running into large people at high speed is dangerous to your health and is likely to shorten your life and/or destroy the quality of it. Some young players have recently retired to avoid future harm. The inherent violence in football is why I, a life-long fan, stopped watching the sport (and boxing many years ago). Am I not alone?
Frankly, I don't believe that the NFL is in any danger of disappearing. Not because of Colin, or damaged brains, or beating up on women (or my abandonment). There's too much money to ignore—as with boxing (see Mayweather, Floyd). The drop in TV watching may be due to the flood of alternative entertainments, especially the ubiquity of high-quality streaming options.
But who knows?
In the Time magazine issue of Sept. 18, Sean Gregory writes on page 25 that a “dark shadow” has been cast over professional football's future. Why? Because of the Colin Kaepernick “boycott” and because of the brain damage done to so many who have played the game. Add to that the annual allegations of wife/girlfriend beatings, and you have an unsavory product. Well, if not unsavory, at least the collective cause of a 9% drop in last year's TV ratings. Bang.
Avoiding the politics of the Kaepernick affair, it seems unlikely to me that the NFL will sink because of the young man's behavior. When the unemployed QB came to Baltimore recently to audition for a back-up job, he is reported to have said that he would be willing to stand for the national anthem if that would help. But no teddy bear. The league seems to have decided it can do without controversy.
As for the brain injury, the results of a recent JAMA report are startling. In the cases of the examination of 110 brains from deceased NFL players, fully 99% had a degenerative brain disease. It seems pretty clear that running into large people at high speed is dangerous to your health and is likely to shorten your life and/or destroy the quality of it. Some young players have recently retired to avoid future harm. The inherent violence in football is why I, a life-long fan, stopped watching the sport (and boxing many years ago). Am I not alone?
Frankly, I don't believe that the NFL is in any danger of disappearing. Not because of Colin, or damaged brains, or beating up on women (or my abandonment). There's too much money to ignore—as with boxing (see Mayweather, Floyd). The drop in TV watching may be due to the flood of alternative entertainments, especially the ubiquity of high-quality streaming options.
But who knows?
