What will it take for me to stop watching football?
Don’t get me wrong; I grew up watching football. My father was a huge NY Giants fan and, in general, and a fan of the sport…of all sports, really. I still get goosebumps when I see clips of the 1986 Giants season or montages of Lawrence Taylor’s super-human athletic plays–like running across the field to tackle a running back or holding the shirt of a lineman while making a tackle.
Courtesy: Sports Illustrated
It’s hard to describe how much bonding takes place in football, especially among men who are taught (otherwise) not to share emotions openly. Sports allow some men, who otherwise contain their feelings, to express and share emotions effusively–of exuberant joy, cheering, hugging and embracing, or of disappointment and outright sorrow.
As I write this, I see how wrong this is. Men need to learn to share their emotions more directly. But a game is just a game. Right? Until it stops being a game.
As of late, a few things have unsettled me.
One of them is the NFL’s lack of openly dealing with the fatal consequences of injuries to players. Yes, players have a choice; no one is making them play. But it doesn’t seem right to support a sport that can cripple a player or cause permanent brain damage.
The data confirming the correlation between playing football and brain injuries is staggering. But the NFL does everything it can to keep these facts out of the public domain. Well, yes, that and the ‘fat’ cash owners make. NFL owners don’t want to stop the dollars rolling in. Dollars are more important than the toll football takes on its players.
Courtesy: Jimrome.com
Then there’s the whole issue of Kaepernick’s kneeling during the National Anthem to protest police shootings and violence towards black men. Some people, egged on by Trump, took this as a slight towards the military or as disrespect to the police. But there are few things more prayerful than kneeling.
“Go out and protest elsewhere!” some fans say. When a player is on the field he has a big microphone. That’s the place to call attention to a wrong, like refusing to sit at the back of a bus or refusing to leave a restaurant that won’t serve African Americans or insisting on going to a school that resists integration. Like Thurgood Marshall said, “Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on.” Saluting the flag is not patriotic; standing up for the ideals the flag represents is.
To make it worse, Trump got involved and commanded that owners take action against the players by requiring them to stand during the National Anthem or face consequences. Why should it be required during a sports game to say the Anthem? And why is kneeling considered a hostile act towards the military? Finally, why should the president be involved at all? Were his military deferments, tax schemes, and courting of Russian influence during the 2016 election examples of his patriotism?
The fact is, the NFL is willing to sacrifice the health, the safety, and the well-being of its players for profits. Players are viewed as disposable, as creatures who perform deathly acts for others’ pleasure.
Only years after protests have been absorbed into popular culture have heroic sports figures received hero’s praise–men like Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, and Dr. J, to name a few. Now that they are all retired or dead. But let’s not forget that Robinson was taunted when he played. At his first game, all but one white player refused to take the field with him. Let’s not forget that Ali was stripped of his championship title because he resisted the Army Draft.
The fact of the matter is that most athletes are considered objects whose existence involves performing athletic feats for fans and as a means for team owners to make money. Supporting equality is considered a distraction–as if football isn’t already a distraction from the widespread inequality that still exists in our country.
But by protesting inequality and the inhumane treatment of African Americans, people like Robinson, Ali, and Kaepernick have contributed to the progress of the United States and the promise of democracy. Our Founders posited the notion that every human being has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. African Americans, women, the LGBTQ community, and other minorities test the limits of those ideas, sometimes at a high cost–their lives.
Even after more than two hundred years, we’re still at the same thing, that is, aspiring to live the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Founders were smart. They knew none of it would happen automatically. It would be a work in progress, something that generation after generation of Americans would continue to discover and experiment with–to figure out what those things really mean. As Marshall said, “Make it. Protect it. Pass it on.“‘
My distress about the NFL (ignoring players’ injuries and the large-scale resistance to Kaepernick’s kneeling) was all made worse last year by the fact that the Giants looked terrible.
So what will it take for me to stop watching football?
The preseason has just kicked off. I haven’t watched a game yet.
I’m deciding if I’ll watch a regular-season game this year.
Future of Tackle Football
I grew up loving the sport (and played one year of tackle after being asked by the coaching staff at my high school), but don’t think it [football] has much of a future. Dropping participation and lawsuits at the lowest level will continue the trend of awareness for the general public. Ultimately this will lead insurance companies to drop sport coverage at the high school and college level. The NFL will survive the longest, but the quality of athlete it procures will slowly decay. The cultural fanaticism the sport has maintained over the past 80 years is about to be challenged/changed.
It would seem that the 7% drop in football participation over the past ten years isn’t a big deal, but a closer look at the numbers suggests it might be. Football doesn’t have to hit true zero for the sport to evaporate or at least start to decline at an increasing rate. As the rate of players drops (people buying pads/helmets) and the expenses related to the pads/equipment increases (as demanded by new safety requirements), we are likely to see a huge inflationary period within the sport where it becomes unaffordable for small middle or high schools to even offer the sport. Analogous to falling dominos, once smaller schools start to drop, bigger schools will start to fall as well as they will not have teams to play, nor will they have the side of the majority supporting its inclusion in the school curriculum.
Furthermore, the sport needs at least 11 players to even field a squad. For arguments sake, let’s assume that a team needs 22 (one for each position offense/defense) to be a viable “team.” If a high school averages a 50-man roster that leaves us with 28 players to be reduced before the sport hits its floor. Assuming it loses one player per year (1-3-5% / year) the sport of tackle football will not be played in 28 years, at least at the lower levels.
This model excludes one potential catalyst to the collapse – a live test for the disease.
Science’s silver bullet: If scientists develop a test for CTE in the living (expected to come in about 5 years) we might see football go away before 2030 at the lowest levels. No way a middle school or high school can ethically justify giving its students brain damage. I am under the impression that a governmental school is intended to educate students minds, first and foremost. As science advances one will hypothetically be able to say, “this athlete got brain damage during this calendar year on school grounds.” This cannot withstand the litmus test (at least for very long). As with anything where a lot of money is stake, politicians and pseudo-scientist will emerge to try to discredit and disavow what science is informing the public. We are already seeing that in California with the “Save Youth Football Campaign”.
I foresee economic challenges related to football’s closure impacting many major Universities who have overspent and over allocated resources during the past couple decades. My alma mater, Clemson University, may be on the most adverse offenders. Sure, we are excelling at the sport, but we are relying on the sport to do most of our advertising, we have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in a sport that doesn’t look to have moral leg to stand on. Eventually the truth will bear out.
Great piece – I feel the same way. I’m also not sure if I can actually stop watching the NFL, it’s such a part of my life. But the guilt and fear I’m being a hypocrite is starting to present a problem for me.
Yo Fredo, this shit is weak. Stick to politics and leave football alone.