What do you think the chances are that football becomes a real political issue at some point in the next five years? Given the problems going on for both the NFL and college football, could happen at either a national or a state level (don't forget that in many states the local state college football coach has the highest state government salary of anyone). Or maybe, whether football's troubles remain or not, it never becomes a political issue. What do you think?
I'm not too sure about a real political issue, but it might be a good candidate for a Conservative Dog Not Barking. Liberal elitists/Michelle Obama want to ban football! First they came for the trans fat, etc.
ReplyDeleteAgreed! No one will want to take on football (political suicide) but someone's words of sorrow (or anger) over brain injuries will no doubt be extended to all liberals and used to denounce and scare ("they want to ban football").
DeleteI mean, I am on the record as wanting to ban football. But I am not a politician...
Outside of Pennsylvania, I don't really see it becoming an issue.
ReplyDeleteVery big, about the time there is reasonable proof found that head collisions are damaging high school player's brains. Should that happen, it won't take long for things to percolate up to the 'why are public schools funding an activity that causes brain damage'. As once that happens, it's only a matter of time before it rolls up colleges and pros, because of the lack of players.
ReplyDeleteHonest question-- could improved safety equipment ameliorate much of the issue? My understanding is that players at all levels aren't using anything close to the state-of-the-art.
DeleteEquipment: probably not.
Deletehttp://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/19/091019fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all
(remainder is a quote from the article)
It’s not just the handful of big hits that matter. It’s lots of little hits, too.
That’s why, Cantu says, so many of the ex-players who have been given a diagnosis of C.T.E. were linemen: line play lends itself to lots of little hits. The hits data suggest that, in an average football season, a lineman could get struck in the head a thousand times, which means that a ten-year N.F.L. veteran, when you bring in his college and high-school playing days, could well have been hit in the head eighteen thousand times: that’s thousands of jarring blows that shake the brain from front to back and side to side, stretching and weakening and tearing the connections among nerve cells, and making the brain increasingly vulnerable to long-term damage. People with C.T.E., Cantu says, “aren’t necessarily people with a high, recognized concussion history. But they are individuals who collided heads on every play—repetitively doing this, year after year, under levels that were tolerable for them to continue to play.”
But if C.T.E. is really about lots of little hits, what can be done about it? Turley says that it’s impossible for an offensive lineman to do his job without “using his head.” The position calls for the player to begin in a crouch and then collide with the opposing lineman when the ball is snapped. Helmet-to-helmet contact is inevitable. Nowinski, who played football for Harvard, says that “proper” tackling technique is supposed to involve a player driving into his opponent with his shoulder. “The problem,” he says, “is that, if you’re a defender and you’re trying to tackle someone and you decide to pick a side, you’re giving the other guy a way to go—and people will start running around you.” Would better helmets help? Perhaps. And there have been better models introduced that absorb more of the shock from a hit. But, Nowinski says, the better helmets have become—and the more invulnerable they have made the player seem—the more athletes have been inclined to play recklessly.
“People love technological solutions,” Nowinski went on. “When I give speeches, the first question is always: ‘What about these new helmets I hear about?’ What most people don’t realize is that we are decades, if not forever, from having a helmet that would fix the problem. I mean, you have two men running into each other at full speed and you think a little bit of plastic and padding could absorb that 150 gs of force?”
I think the only way football can survive in the long term is to severely rework the game to eliminate offensive and defensive linemen. Passing, running, and tackling (you know, the exciting parts of the game) can be kept in some form, but there's no reason to keep 10-12 guys bashing their heads together every single play.
DeleteThe concussion/safety issue definitely reached out to a new audience a few weeks ago and related to that is the Dolphins bullying issue, so it's gaining a sort of momentum. Whether it becomes a political issue I don't know. Probably not. Though steroid use blew up... but that was a "values" thing with ties to the war on drugs, I see this being more of a self-regulation issue, with Libertarians keeping as far a distance as they can, and like Drew posted for "are country" conservatives to use as a minor wedge, the way Palin brought a giant cup of soda to CPAC last year.
ReplyDeleteThat's right, steroid use did somehow become a national political issue. But did it ever actually have any clear ideological or partisan valence? Plenty of people have opinions on the matter, but I never got the sense that it came to have purchase in fitting in to how voters think more broadly about issues or who they vote for. I figure the same thing happens with the amorphous matter of football.
DeleteI could easily seeing this as a culture war type of issue, in that it could be highly salient to those who sense a loss of a traditional world in which they felt secure, who feel uncomfortable with modernity, etc. Certainly it will strike a chord with Tea Party types, but also with a broader demographic. Especially lower and middle class white males, whose economic fortunes have been stagnant for 30 years
ReplyDeleteI think that this might be part of why it hasn't seen a lot of oxygen. However, if players are the main proponents (which makes sense, it's their brains) it may change.
DeleteBoxing is not the national sport it used to be either.
Big time college football, like all big time college sports, will become an economic issue, as more young men and women come to realize that the high cost of a college education isn't worth it. Sure, top students and graduates will continue to prosper, but it's the bottom half on which big time college sports depends - not according to intelligence (top students enjoy college sports too) but sheer numbers necessary to pay the enormous costs of big time college sports.
ReplyDeleteI think football is much more of a political issue on the local level than at the national level. I remember being shocked last week at reports that a Texas school district proposing a $69 million bond issue to construct a HS football stadium. Four years ago the NY school district I lived in (disclosure: I was a board member at the time) passed a bond issue to construct multisport field for $3.4 million, with grants covering $2.3 million (only $1.1 million coming from the taxpayers). And it barely passed - 53% approved.
ReplyDeleteI was actually kind of surprised to read that the Texas proposal failed - 54% opposed.
As sports demands more and more public support, it is obviously going to become a political issue. And football is just about the most expensive sport around when it comes to the cost of running the program and building the facilities.
I think it's making its way into the culture war politics but in hindsight it's always been there. What party do you think football jocks tend towards? And what party do you think band or the drama club or the art students tend towards?
ReplyDeleteThen there's the rural-suburan-urban divides. In small towns high school football is a big cultural event but in other places it's not really a big deal and it's not valued as much.
But I think the important point here is that it's not like other culture war issues in which both sides feel almost equally strongly in opposite directions (guns, abortion, etc.). Maybe conservatives/the GOP feel deeply culturally attached to keeping football as it is. But I'd say the prevailing attitude among liberals, if they aren't huge football fans, is relative indifference to the matter.
DeleteI highly doubt brain damage is going to become a political issue, but since that's not the only issue regarding football...
ReplyDeleteI strongly hope the NCAA is forced to get rid of it's bans on athletes of any sort making money from the sports they perform. We don't ban kids who take math from extracurriculars if they get a part time job preparing taxes. We don't ban theatre students from plays if they get a summer job doing dinner theatre. Dare I say it's downright un-American to have rules preventing people from making money from their own names, images, and actions?
I can see the tax exemption the NFL currently receives becoming a real political issue, along with pressure to allow some form of compensation to NCAA athletes. I can easily see public financing of stadiums becoming more of a political issue than it is already, but that isn't just an NFL specific issue.
ReplyDeleteNot sure about brain injuries. However, I have a hard time seeing how the issue goes away, given how many prominent former NFL players are suffering from CTE and aren't being compensated. So I could see the issue becoming more prominent and maybe leading to calls to ban contact football for pre-teens. But not in the next 5 yrs. Don't think any politician would touch how the game is being played at the NFL level.
It's a third rail issue, Americans love football more than they love just about anything. I don't see anyway that it would make good politics to intervene.
ReplyDeleteMost sports fanatics also follow baseball, basketball and hockey. Even golf. If another sport moves into the calendar slot, they'd adjust.
DeleteAgree with the conservative dog not barking comments above. I don't think it'll become a political issue per se, but over time, football may decrease in popularity like boxing if it perceived as brutal or unsafe by the average, middle-class parent.
ReplyDeleteI would bet even-money that one of the New England states abolishes public high school football within 10 years. I guess that's political.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, though, this seems more like a liability issue. If anything kills public high school football, it will be insurance carriers refusing to cover it except at absurd cost. That strikes me a highly plausible. Once public high school football is gone, I assume some sort of private system for older teens will crop up. So I don't think football itself is in too much trouble. But I don't except public high school football to continue everywhere much longer.
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I'm leaning towards football never becoming a serious political issue. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if it does. I mean: what isn't political nowadays?
ReplyDeleteLot of interesting comments, no one mentioned the JerMichael Finley injury, which is pretty good evidence that the NFL can't solve its head injury problem.
ReplyDeleteIf you're not familiar (and didn't click the link), Finley is a tight end who lowered his head in advance of a hit, to protect his knees. Guys like Finley are doing that all the time, particularly because defenders are going for the knees (as head shots are severely penalized). Because Finley tried to protect his knees, his head made impact with the defender, causing a very serious season-ending (and maybe career-ending) spinal injury.
So the rules the NFL put in place to protect Finley's head caused the defender to go for his knees, which prompted Finley to duck his head to protect his knees, leading to a very serious head-and-neck injury. Really, the NFL can't win.
Back to the original question, I would guess Congress gets involved within the next five years...with the NFL's blessing. The strategy might be something like that of the cigarette manufacturers; when you're in a no-win situation, it might help to have Congress establish a limit for your potential losses.
The other thing no one mentioned is that the NFL is a bizarre work environment where 20% of the employees are made permanently wealthy by their employment, and the other 80% receive no tangible financial benefit from their time in the NFL. Oh, and most of them are significantly physically compromised as a result of their employment. And the business is worth about $10 B.
ReplyDeleteHow does government not get involved?
The rising generation of voters are relatively libertarian when it comes to social and voluntary lifestyle choices. They are not going to swoon to the idea of any sort of "ban" on something that is in no way compulsory. I think we risk overestimating how much liberals would find small-bore government regulation of a specific sport. (Where does it end? Boxing? UFC? Lumberjack competitions, since that's such an inherently dangerous activity?)
ReplyDeleteSure, let's raise public awareness about the dangers of football, let's have a relatively small debate about what the funding for that would be, and about, as some posters above say, what status privileges the NFL or the NCAA programs should have before local/state/federal government levels. But making it some dramatic issue about "bans" and condemning football as barbaric -- I think that's going to fall really flat with many younger liberals.
PF, here's the Wikipedia page for Mike Webster, Hall-of-Fame center for the Steelers' dynasty, also first football player to be confirmed with CTE. Money paragraph about his post-football life:
Delete"After retirement, Webster suffered from amnesia, dementia, depression, and acute bone and muscle pain. He lived out of his pickup truck or in train stations between Wisconsin and Pittsburgh, even though his friends and former teammates were willing to rent apartments for him. In his last years Webster lived with his youngest son, Garrett, who though only a teenager at the time, had to act as the parent to his father. Webster's wife Pamela divorced him six months before his death in 2002. He was only 50 years old."
Obviously, IANAL, but if that narrative is not a call to action for liberals...wait. Why are there liberals again?
I think there is a real chance that the courts will require that college players be compensated for the use of their names and images. Sorting that out will be an enormous mess, and drastically change the landscape for college sports. I am sure there will be politicians who get very exercised by this -- any big change to the status quo will get folks riled up.
ReplyDeleteClear eyes. Full hearts. Can't lose.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Matt Glassman above, it's going to be insurance costs that kill it deader and quicker than any politicization of the game will.
ReplyDeleteI didn't play football and I just had a son last month, he will never play football either.
Late to this conversation but in Illinois there has been some political action around this. Earlier this year a bill was introduced to limit tackling during football practice to one day per week. It met with a lot of opposition and never passed as best I can tell.
ReplyDeleteIn looking at that I see that Sen. Dick Durbin has recently introduced a bill to "enhance concussion management and safety protocols in primary and secondary schools across the country."
I think this nibbling at the edges is as far as it will go politically. As mentioned above it will be the insurance companies and parents preventing their children from playing that will do any real damage to football's long term viability.