Football faces one issue after another. Where are things likely to settle?
Drums are sounding again—to no one’s surprise—about the game’s future. High school football participation is down, reports Patrick Hruby, citing statistics from the National Federation of State High School Associations and the Sports and Fitness Industry Association.
Courtesy: photos.gatorcountry.com
Overall high school athletic participation has risen 6% over the past decade, but tackle football participation has declined about 17.4% in just the last five years. Hruby concludes that declines are having an impact on the game. “High school football…finds itself coping with mounting reports of merged teams, forfeited games and canceled seasons.”
There are multiple reasons for declining participation in football, but a risk-related reason stands out—the fear of long-term health consequences from repeated hits to the head.
Health impacts from playing the game aren’t solely a high school issue, of course. The New York Times reports that retired NFL players are suffering indirectly in another way—hooked on opioids in retirement— the consequences of using medications to manage injury-related pain.
None of these findings are new, though. And they aren’t likely to sound a death knell for the game, either. That’s because a pool of players will keep the game alive for a country that can’t seem to get enough of the pigskin sport. Witness the fact that a new pro league will launch later this month.
But there’s a hitch to counter the hoopla.
We live in a society where money and markets reign supreme. We measure people and enterprises by worth, revenue-generating capacity, and financial risk. Football is no different, and that has been a good thing for the game—until now.
Insurance coverage is a fundamental feature associated with the economics of sport. It helps sponsors manage risk—just as farmers do when they buy crop insurance. But what happens when insurers conclude that the risk of offering coverage is too high?
“Before concussion litigation roiled the NFL beginning in 2011,” the reporters write, “at least a dozen carriers occupied the insurance market for pro football, according to industry experts.” Today, only one company is willing to provide the NFL with workers compensation insurance. The same circumstance faces the helmet industry–only one carrier covers neurological injuries.
Insurers are especially concerned about what they call the ‘latent impacts’ of the game. Those impacts emerge over time–what insurers faced with workers who experienced asbestos exposure.
Fainaru and Fainaru-Wada cite an industry official. “Traumatic brain injury ‘is an emerging latent exposure the likes of which the insurance industry has not seen in decades,’ Joe Cellura, president of North American casualty at Allied World, wrote in a blog post last year for the website, Risk & Insurance.”
Courtesy: Insurance Journal
The evolution of the insurance industry is likely to affect youth, high school, lower-end college, and semi-pro football—sooner and with more impact—vis-à-vis high-end college and pro football. Money is the reason. Without insurance coverage, the financial risk associated with playing will outdistance the rewards of competing.
But before concluding that limited or no insurance coverage is a threat, let’s look at another way of thinking about the matter. For that perspective, let’s consider Mike Florio’s interpretation, which appeared recently in Pro Football Talk.
I view Florio’s argument as constituting a standard three-step: DENY, DEFEND, and DEFLECT, what I call ‘The Three D’s.”
Florio denies that limited insurance coverage is a legitimate reason for damning football. He argues that football is still a low-risk proposition for insurers because complainants will “have a hard time prevailing.” A tight connection hasn’t been made medically between playing football and “the emergence of cognitive issues far later in life.”
Courtesy: Business Insurance
Florio defends football, arguing that there’s more than enough money at the high-level college and pro levels to cover claims that might come the game’s way.
Florio deflects concern by saying that other sports—ice hockey and soccer, for instance—face the very same situation. Why are we focusing on football only, he asks?
What about the players? Players knew the risks before they slapped on helmets, he writes. And what about the kids? “Many think kids under 14 shouldn’t play tackle football, anyway,” Florio writes.
So where might we settle on the matter?
Over the long haul, I believe the outcome will be the result of the interplay among choices (individual and institutional), markets (financial risk/reward), and courts (what is legal and just). But don’t expect those domains to move in the same direction and at the same pace.
And don’t underestimate the impact of public fancy. Times change and so do tastes. Baseball hasn’t been “America’s Pastime” for decades. ‘Friday Night Fights’ isn’t on network TV these days. Horse racing. Well, you get the drift.
In the meantime, enjoy the Super Bowl … while it’s around.
