National Touch Football League
McMahon, ex-players sue NFL, claim negligence over concussions
http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/story/15450124/mcmahon-former-players-sue-nfl-over-concussions
<added>
I went back and found this Guardian article from a month ago. Take a look at the video
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jul/19/nfl-star-brain-injuries-destroyed
I can see this more affecting high school sports than professional sports.
Think of the lawsuits this will bring up...high schools won't be able to pay for the insurance to have regular football played.
[update]
The latest brain study examined 111 former NFL players. Only one didn't have CTE.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/the-latest-brain-study-examined-111-former-nfl-players-only-one-didnt-have-cte/2017/07/25/835b49e4-70bc-11e7-8839-ec48ec4cae25_story.html
I dunno rc...NFL has deep, deep lawyers.
I wonder why that cbs article is now 404.
Don't get me wrong, I think all spectator sports are dying in the US, to some degree. This may speed things along, but it's already (going to be) dead, Jim.
Quote[Congress's] investigation has shown that while the NFL had been publicly proclaiming its role as the founder and accelerator of important research, it was privately attempting to influence that research," the study said. "The NFL attempted to use its 'unrestricted gift' as leverage to steer funding away from critics.
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-ending-partnership-with-the-national-institute-of-health-on-concussion-study/
In the long run football and probably rugby will die; no responsible parent will be wanting their boy to do something that causes brain damage. It may take a while though for the reconcile to happen though.
Quote from: littleman on July 29, 2017, 07:12:29 AM
In the long run football and probably rugby will die; no responsible parent will be wanting their boy to do something that causes brain damage. It may take a while though for the reconcile to happen though.
This has been my prediction on football. It will take a generation or two but you will start to see football being downgraded and eventually dropped on a high school level. It will come from the insurance companies and lawyers making it increasingly costly to maintain the sport on an amateur level.
>insurance companies and lawyers
Good point. A couple of stiff verdicts against school districts and they'll pull the plug.
>parents
There a a lot of them in denial, though. They be clinging to the programs until the lawyers close them down.
I'm not so sure, been deaths in the boxing ring forever still going. I think if you would ask *almost* any ex-pro NFL player that knowing what they know now what would they do, 99.9% would say "the same".
Here is the opinion of one of the best players to play the game https://youtu.be/yuhtGkomjA8?t=108
QuoteThe most expensive keyword term for 2014, 'mesothelioma attorneys tx', had an average cost per click of $319.34. The other 12 mesothelioma-related keywords in the Top 20 averaged a $216.17 cost per click.
It won't matter what the players think.
>no responsible parent
But those players make millions. A few celebrity years are attractive to poor families with nothing to lose. And there is so much money to be made by so many people. It forms a gravitational field.
I wonder if football could actually become more violent, with crowds cheering louder for bigger hits? Full circle to Rome.
> so much money to be made
I agree to an extent. First, there's the denial group (like those who smoke) that think they're somehow immune. Then there's the fame-and-fortune group (like those who play the lottery --though the lottery odds may be more favorable). And there's currently not much more than a correlation with the sport. At this stage it feels a lot like the early years of the tobacco-cancer or asbestos wars, but there's definitely a small trickle of blood in the water. It's going to take a few more years to gain critical mass. If the lawyers gut the school sports programs it won't matter what a parent thinks, their kid will be playing badminton.
>trickle of blood
I went on a quick search after the above post.
http://nypost.com/2016/03/08/pop-warner-football-settles-concussion-lawsuit/
Gearing up already:
https://pricebenowitz.com/blog/can-sue-school-athletic-organization-childs-sports-injury
It be erosion from the bottom up: Pop Warner, small rural high schools that can barely afford any athletic program, up the food chain to wealthier high schools and on to universities. Most of these do not have deep pockets with all the tax cuts, tax caps, and other financial pressures. But these are the training grounds for pro football without them feeding trained talent to the next level above the game will suffer. There is big money at the pro and part of the college levels of the game but not so much at high schools and colleges not famous for football.
It is going to take time. Local high schools have spent huge sums of money over the last 30 years building football fields that are far fancier than many small universities.
Quote from: Brad on July 30, 2017, 12:20:42 PM
It be erosion from the bottom up
From the bottom up agewise and from the top down socially. My dad was a college football coach and then athletic director. One of the things he used to say is that if you look at "tough" sports, they tend to be dominated by people with fewer options. Someone mentioned boxing, and he used to like to argue that the reason so many great boxers were Irish and Italian and that's not true anymore is not because Irish and Italians don't have the genetics to compete against Hispanics and African-Americans in boxing, but they don't have the need to get punched in the face to make a living.
He made a similar argument about quarterbacks versus linebackers.
I think what you'll see is that wealthier families, who are saving for college for their kids and are counting on sports to keep their kid rounded and education to keep their kid employed, will start pushing their kids away from football. I see it already in terms of soccer (aka "real football" for the non-US audience following along) becoming the preferred sport of the upper middle and wealthy classes on the coasts. And despite some fear-mongering, it is almost certainly a lot safer
- https://sports.vice.com/en_us/article/qkyyv3/the-study-on-cte-in-soccer-is-not-what-you-think-it-is
Plus, I see an evolution of sports perception anyway. When I was a high-school rock climber, this was an absolute geek sport. Nobody could name a climber they didn't know personally. It was not considered a sport at all and those who climbed were not considered athletes in any way. It was just some weird sort of camping for asocial nerds (maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, but I barely remember anyone even asking me about climbing or being in the least curious when I was a teenager).
Now I have a co-worker who told me she wants to have Tommy Caldwell's babies (which is funny, because Tommy is a friend and as humble, relaxed and geeky guy as you could imagine) and Dean Potter had all kinds of groupies (though also a neighbor and as nice a guy as you could meet). I think there are a lot of activities that have been around a long time as "nerd fringe" that are now "cool" and semi-mainstream.
More and more, I think the "cool" kids in a high school are the ones *not* playing football. May be different in the Midwest and Texas, but it's already true in a lot of the country.
BTW, I have had 'NFL' filtered out on my reader since I started filtering. All of this is coming through Gnews (where I have also deleted the Sports section since forever). In the US, I don't think a person can avoid the media blitz this is getting.
Quoteparticipation in tackle football by boys ages 6 to 12 has fallen by nearly 20 percent since 2009, though it rose 1.2 percent, to 1.23 million, in 2015, according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association. Schools in several states — including Maine, Missouri and New Jersey — have shut their tackle football programs because of safety concerns and a shortage of players.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/sports/youth-football-wants-to-save-the-game-by-shrinking-it.html
NYTimes article from today's Gnews 'Spotlight' section goes in for the kill.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/25/sports/football/nfl-cte.html
Quote from: rcjordan on August 01, 2017, 11:03:56 AMIn the US, I don't think a person can avoid the media blitz this is getting
Agreed. I don't read sports news at all and am trying to stay on a general reduced-news diet. But today there was an article about a player who said "It's not worth dying for this shit. LOL" on Twitter. And the article mentioned the wave of early retirements. A quick Google search found
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/only-23-another-nfl-player-is-retiring-early-because-of-concussions/
http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl/photos/nfl-retirements-early-surprising-shocking-2017-concussions/1ozskhpg4jtq81lfshcqy9h5bx/slide/574028
Some are looking at alternative careers... like PhDs in math (the sportingnews.com article above said Urschel retired the day after the big CTE report came out)
http://www.businessinsider.com/offensive-lineman-john-urschel-starting-phd-at-mit-2016-5
There is a great book from the Raiders old surgeon Dr. Rob Huizenga, "You're okay, it's just a bruise" where players were cleared to play who had obvious concussions. TL;DR: Player safety was overlooked EVERY SINGLE TIME to get them on the field so the team would win. There was a report a few days ago that Jim Plunkett is having to take 13 pills a day to deal with the pain during his post football playing days.
>Someone mentioned boxing, and he used to like to argue that the reason so many great boxers were Irish and Italian and that's not true anymore is not because Irish and Italians don't have the genetics to compete against Hispanics and African-Americans in boxing, but they don't have the need to get punched in the face to make a living.
I think that this is basically true and the rise of Russian and other ex-Soviet state boxers fits with the pattern.
"Sometimes you don't choose boxing, it chooses you. It's the only sport that lets you escape violence and poverty through the act of violence itself. "
--Mike Tyson
Quote from: CaboWabo on August 06, 2017, 04:48:06 PM
There was a report a few days ago that Jim Plunkett is having to take 13 pills a day to deal with the pain during his post football playing days.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/04/jim-plunketts-painful-journey-my-life-sucks/
Football's decline has some high schools disbanding teams
https://apnews.com/66e699491a3b478293620c1e5069dc9e/Football's-decline-has-some-high-schools-disbanding-teams
Whoa!! Bob Costas roasts the sport on USA Today
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2017/11/08/bob-costas-future-football-nfl-this-game-destroys-peoples-brains/842904001/
Just saw this on Twitter:
NFL ratings through nine weeks is down 5.5% versus first 9 weeks of last year.
Perspective: Drop is in line with the rest of television.
>Twitter
QuoteViewership fell 18 percent year over year in Week 10, with lower ratings in all six game-time windows, according to JPMorgan.
That puts the NFL's season-to-date audience decline at roughly 7 percent.
While that compares well with the NFL's 12 percent decline at this point in 2016, much last year's decline was written off as a one-time effect from the presidential election.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/16/nfl-worries-climb-with-tough-weeks-ahead.html
<added>
Somewhere in here or the earlier Core, there's a post of NC hunting licenses declining at a 7% annual rate. Within 5 years, the difference was noticeable to anyone even vaguely interested. Within 10 years the hunters are all but gone.
First CTE Diagnosis in Living Patient Confirmedhttp://www.newser.com/story/251677/doctors-thought-he-had-cte-his-death-gave-confirmation.html
Once sports medicine progresses enough to be able to scan at-risk high school players, it's all over. Even football-loving parents in strong denial will have to come to terms.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/24/sports/football/canadian-footballs-big-steps-to-reduce-hits-a-contrast-to-the-nfl.html
Quote
WINNIPEG, Manitoba — On a bone-chilling day this month, as the hometown Blue Bombers of the Canadian Football League practiced for a playoff game against the Edmonton Eskimos, something was noticeably missing: the unmistakable crack of plastic hitting plastic.
In September, the league barred players from deliberately slamming into one another during regular-season practices, and while they still wear helmets, they no longer wear shoulder pads and other protective gear in practices.
By most standards, the league's decision, aimed at reducing injuries like concussions, was a bold one. To date, the Ivy League is the only college conference to end full-contact football practices in the regular season. The C.F.L., which will crown its champion on Sunday in the Grey Cup, also added a third bye week to its 18-game calendar so there would be more time between games for players to recover.
The moves were not entirely welcomed by coaches and general managers, coming in the middle of the season. But the league commissioner has stood by them.
"This is a way for us to improve our game and keep it at the forefront and be progressive," said Randy Ambrosie, who played nine seasons in the C.F.L. and became commissioner of the nine-team league in July. "I know change is hard, and sometimes you have to make the bold decision in order to move things forward. That's the way the world works."
https://www.vox.com/2017/2/4/14500454/super-bowl-linemen-huge
This video/article is examining how the changes in the rules in the NFL has caused the size of linemen to get bigger. It doesn't really address the head injury issue, but a reversal of some of this may be part of the solution to lower brain damage.