Posted on 02/03/2013 6:56:31 AM PST by Kaslin
Professional football is the most popular spectator sport in America, which is one reason the Super Bowl is expected to draw 110 million viewers. With its famous athletes, storied franchises and lucrative TV contracts, it's an industry whose future appears limitless.
But football has a problem: the specter of mass brain damage among current and former players. So far, the steady trickle of disturbing revelations has had no apparent effect on ticket sales or TV ratings. What it has done, though, is more ominous: It has invited lawsuits.
If football falls into decline, it may not be the result of fans turning away, athletes avoiding it or parents forbidding it. It may be from lawyers representing players who sustained chronic traumatic encephalopathy and expect to be compensated for the damage.
Already, more than 4,000 former players are suing the NFL, claiming it failed to warn them of the hazards. The family of San Diego Chargers great Junior Seau, whose autopsy revealed CTE after his suicide last year, has filed a wrongful death suit against the league. The Seaus are also accusing Riddell Inc. of making unsafe helmets.
Walter Olson, a Cato Institute fellow, blogger (Overlawyered.com) and author of several books on liability, knows well how a tide of litigation can transform a landscape. And he has a bold prediction: "If we were to apply the same legal principles to football as we do to other industries, it would have to become extremely different, if not go out of business."
"Seriously?" you may ask. A guy who made a good living engaging in high-speed collisions with 300-lb. blocks of granite can say he didn't understand the risks involved? It may seem that case will be laughed out of court.
But Olson thinks not. "Courts have not been very friendly to this argument, particularly when something as grave as permanent brain damage is involved," he told me. And it's become apparent that while players were aware of the possibility of mangled knees, broken bones and concussions, they didn't grasp that repeated blows to the head could produce debilitating and irreversible mental harms.
Exposure to asbestos was long known to be unhealthy, but that didn't stop sick workers from succeeding in court. More than 730,000 people have sued some 8,000 companies, and dozens of firms connected to asbestos in some way have been driven into bankruptcy.
The NFL has a weak hand in other ways as well. Professional football players, notes Olson, make particularly appealing litigants, since they tend to be well-known and widely liked. Their cases will get a lot of sympathetic publicity.
These athletes are handsomely paid, which means that brain trauma may deprive them of years of high earnings while requiring them to get expensive care for decades -- all of which the league and other parties (stadium owners, equipments makers and so on) may be forced to pay for.
On the other side are owners, many of whom are resented for charging high prices, fielding losing teams year after year or simply being insufferable. (Jerry Jones, I'm looking at you.)
Next in the line of fire are the soulless corporations that make or sell helmets, facemasks and other gear that failed to prevent these injuries -- and may even have contributed to them. Doctors and trainers who cleared players to return to action after a fog-inducing tackle will get close scrutiny to determine whether they put the team's needs above the patient's.
The NFL and other defendants can argue that they too were surprised to find out how much brain damage can result from the game and therefore should not be blamed for it. But as Olson notes, the game is still being played in pretty much the same way as it was before. Lawyers for the plaintiffs, he says, can ask: "How much difference would that knowledge have made if you're still letting this happen?"
It's always possible, of course, for lawmakers to pass legislation exempting organized football from the usual liability standards. But if one state or 10 states do so, attorneys can find excuses to file the lawsuits in states that don't -- since the NFL is an interstate business.
A federal law might take the issue out of state courts. But how many senators will want to vote to deprive ravaged gridiron legends of their day in court?
The NFL has a lot of experience with blitzes. But it's never seen anything like the one that's coming.
Look the answer is obvious. Replace the men with women, the force of the collisions will be dramatically reduced and women will be on a better career path having engaged in combat.
Good points. The irony is that the “safer” helmets encourage more helmet-to-helmet contact while they cannot keep the brain from rattling around in its pan.
Millions of American males have played at least some level of
organized tackle football. A relative few live their lives with some
pain, usually involving the ankle, knee, or shoulder. Even fewer
players end up with permanent brain damage.
This whole debate reminds me of the airplane crash issue. When
we have a series of airliner crashes some people get their panties
in a twist. They ignore the fact that many thousands of planes
have taken off and landed without incident.
There is an ongoing battle to take away ALL forms of risk
in this country and I, for one, think it is pretty dumb.
People didn’t stop liking boxing (as much it’s not exactly “dead” just no longer a major sport in the US. Mexico and the UK seem to like it a little better) cause of it’s violent nature.
America LOVES violence. Football is huge $$$$$$$ bizness it’s not going anywhere anytime soon despite all the “oh woe is me this is bad but I love football” commentary from the media. Sports media people are like, having fights within their own minds over this. It’s hilarious.
I for one didn’t need recent medical evidence and sensationization to tell me that getting multiple blows to the head was BAD FOR YOU. In boxing that’s called being punch drunk and it’s been common knowledge for decades. It’s somewhat dangerous to play football, people do it by choice, that should be the end of it.
Make better helmets, safer tackling is possible maybe, they aren’t letting concussed people get back on the field until a doctor clears them, that’s good.
Wussy losers will try to water down the heart of the game though by doing things like eliminating the kickoff. If they do that...
Sarcastaball. We may as well drink each others.......
It’s really pure physics.
The NFL players are by far the top level in speed and size, so they’re going to have the highest g-force collisions.
Unfortunately while their muscles are the biggest, their brain tissue is just as impact sensitive as anybody else.
MMA is less violent actually due to the ability of the fighter to "tap out" without shame. All a fighter does is grapple and turn his back in order for a rear choke.
Or putting the strong arm on hapless taxpayers to build their team a new state of the art stadium. Good example, Mike Brown of the Cincinnati Bengals ... the old stadium barely 25 years old was demolished.
I quit watching football when they created the “Red Zone.” Their percentages, in the “red zone,” how many points, in the “red zone,” how many plays, in the “red zone,” against this team or that team, during the season, last season, the last two seasons, NUTS! I turned them off. No more.
The reason Pro football is going away is because the player farms under the NFL are going away. First middle school and High School football will disappear since school districts can’t absorb the coming lawsuits. Without high schools where will college recruit? Due to the larger amounts of money involved colleges will last a few years more than high school programs and the pros will be the last to go simply because of the vast resources of the NFL. Given enough time lawyers will eventually ruin EVERYTHING!
You are correct. Your user name obviously indicates that you
are a follower of auto racing which is another high risk enter
prise. The thing we realize is the more and the longer people
engage in high risk activities the better the chance of harmful
incidents occurring. There is an element of our society that
seems to thrive on attempting to eliminate all posibility of
risk. To me that is absurd.
And yet we have over half a million America dead because of AIDS, primarily due to consensual but immoral practice, which “helmets” alone will not prevent.
To my mind, the full embrace of the homosexual agenda by the NFL has speeded its demise.
oh I hadn’t realized the NFL did that
soccor is a really stupid game, most of these games are for numbskulls
They can win it. First thing to do is start writing checks, settle all those cases out of court, they’ve got the cash. Next thing to do is stop screwing around with veteran players and their healthcare, no more trying to write off problems as non-football, again just start writing checks (the NFL has ridiculously deep pockets), cover everything, cover the flu. Once they do that the problem, at least the PR portion, will be gone.
Boxing didn’t die because of brain injuries, boxing died because the sport is insanely corrupt, there’s too many “world governing bodies” handing out belts, and not enough bouts. If there were no more than 2 “champions” at every weight class, and those champs had to fight twice a year, and the results seemed genuine boxing would be back. That’s how the MMA grew.
I quit watching when the Colts left Baltimore. I don’t think I’ve missed much since then...
Joint injuries don’t lead to the imagery of hall of famers babbling nonsense and living under bridges though. That’s powerful depressing stuff.
yeah it is for sure my kid had to box a kid who was supposedly 14 but had a 5 o clock shadow.
so now it’s all about who can garner the most sympathy through jealousy and resentment?
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