The NFL Under Fire
The NFL has dominated viewership ratings on channels like NBC, FOX, and ABC for the past 40 years over any other sport in the country. People have gravitated towards American Football because of its incredible athletes and inherent violence, however over the past couple of years, what has made football so popular may also be slowly killing it.
As technology advances, medicine and awareness advance with it, and while this has helped the NFL increase its viewership by expanding to the internet, it has also exposed a darker side of the NFL's massive shadow.
CTE, or Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, is a brain disease caused by repeated trauma inflicted on the head. CTE generally occurs 8 to 10 years after a person has experienced the head trauma. In its first stage, some of the symptoms include hyper attention deficit disorder (ADHD), Confusion, disorientation, and many other problems. In its second stage, symptoms include memory loss, social instability, impulsive behavior, and poor judgment. Third and fourth stages include progressive dementia, movement disorders, depression, and suicidality.
This is the NFL's biggest problem. It doesn't attract many headlines or attention, but as CTE becomes better studied and becomes a household name, the NFL will have to pay more attention to it.
Former NFL players have come out and have said that they are concerned about their mental health after retirement. Former NFL superstar and quarterback Brett Favre in a recent interview on the Today show, talked about how in a conversation with his wife that he didn't remember that his youngest daughter played soccer. When asked whether or not he could attribute these symptoms to the amount of head trauma he suffered in his 20-year career, he said...
"Well I can't say for certain, I would assume so, but I gotta believe that after 20 years and if you go back I played 4 years in college, and played every game, and then high school. The toll has gotta be pretty high."
Ken Stabler, former Oakland Raiders Quarterback, and Hall of Famer had stage 3 CTE. He had told his family that he wanted his brain studied after learning that former NFL Linebacker Junior Seau was diagnosed with the disease. Seau had shot himself in the chest at age 43. Whats remarkable about Stabler is that before he died he had mentioned to his family that he thought he had CTE.
Unfortunately, CTE cannot be diagnosed until after a person has died. This has made it very difficult for the medical field to trace the disease to a specific thing. This allows the NFL and its owners to hide behind the statements like the one made by Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys...
"A big part of this is prevention. But the other part of it is to basically understand that we don’t know or have any idea that there is a consequence as to any type of head injury in the future."
However, in recent years its become increasingly more difficult for the NFL to claim ignorance any longer, as athletes and their parents have become more concerned and have begun to pull their children from high school and college football programs. This has left the NFL in a very precarious and troublesome spot. The NFL could continue to deny that their sport causes any type of brain damage and risk losing more and more prospects and sponsors over time. Or, when it is 100 percent confirmed that repeated head trauma in football causes CTE they can claim responsibility and risk losing sponsors, prospects, and millions of dollars in lawsuits.
Either one of those circumstances isn't ideal for the NFL as a company, but it's a ticking time bomb that they cannot ignore.
Sources and references:
