Slow news day, so I’d suggest you take the opportunity to watch last night’s long-awaited Frontline documentary “League of Denial,” now streaming in its entirety on the PBS website. It is excellent, harrowing, and likely to make you think twice about getting your entertainment from watching a sport that involves human beings smashing their heads against each other as hard as they can. Not to mention whether cities should be approving NFL stadiums based on expectations of what league revenues will look like 20-30 years from now.
65 comments on “You will never see the MNF graphic of two helmets colliding the same way again”
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Also worth watching is THE UNITED STATES OF FOOTBALL. Although it covers some of the same ground (and interview subjects), USOF takes a broader sociological view, as well—the poor oversight of youth football, and the ever-widening gap between those who watch and profit from football and those who play it.
But LEAGUE OF DENIAL is outstanding, too, with its use of the NFL’s own product—the clashing MNF helmets that mention, as well as the terrifying images of hits delivered to Steve Young, Troy Aikman, Terry Bradshaw and others.
Good point about investing in new stadiums for a league that may not be viable in two or three decades time. But then, forecasts of Miami disappearing into the Gulf of Mexico haven’t forestalled speculation about David Beckham’s new soccer team there.
Wow. What a report. The people I really feel bad for are all those ex-players who were told that football was completely safe and would cause no long term damage.
Watched “Frontline” and what was so reprehensible is the chorus of denials from the NFL on there being a CTE/concussion problem, despite the overwhelming evidence. On the other hand, if you polled NFL players, my guess is the OVERWHELMING majority of them would state they are willing to “roll the dice,” on possibly getting CTE, simply because the money that is being offered in contracts today is just too much of an enticement.
Perhaps sometime in the not too distant future, football will be played by robots, like the FOX robot they constantly trot out between commercial interruptions…
Yeah, Dan… the economic incentive will be too great for some people to ignore. But how long does that last? Just generally you are going to see more people keep their kids out of the sport. That leads to a depletion of the talent pool (12-year-olds that don’t play, don’t become draft choices). Less talent and the game isn’t the ratings monster that drives the revenue (Remember replacement player games? Or the World League? Who is paying billions for rights to that?).
Curiously, this might solve a lot of the NCAA’s problems. Major college football, isn’t so major if there is no potential million-dollar-paycheck on the other side.
Neil, while I personally agree with what you’re saying, I honestly don’t think any revelation about the NFL would deter the average football fan from watching. They watch in part to see these very injuries occur (hopefully being doled out by their team). Football is to modern America what Gladiatories were to the Romans. The players are just meat providing entertainment to the masses. Their safety doesn’t seem to factor into it for most fans and they’re more concerned with “wussifying” the sport than they are their favorite player having brain and other injuries later in life. And I suspect the more we learn about the injuries football can incur the more fans will just say that players accept these injuries the minute they decided to put a uniform on.
The flip side is that the NFL could go the way boxing did with its own head injury problem. But boxing’s issues came as much from mismanagement (or no managment as it were) as it did from head trauma.
But if I am wrong I’d be happy. Unlike football we do have several sports out there that aren’t designed to cause traumatic brain and other injuries to people like baseball, soccer and basketball that would fill the void in a football-less world. Hockey… They have their own issues but they’re also more manageable if the league ever chose to act and eliminate goonery entirely.
I know several people who have either stopped watching football or are very queasy about it since the brain injury revelations. If football collapses, though, I don’t think it will be from loss of interest from current fans, but from 1) lawsuits upon lawsuits, especially at the high school/college level, which would help feed into 2) a younger generation that neither plays nor watches football, if they go to colleges that have given up the game as too dangerous/litigiously expensive.
This would be a long, slow slide, needless to say. (Much like the sinking of Miami, actually.) But when you’re talking about 30-year bonds, you need to consider long, slow slides.
But Miami isn’t sinking…
Sorry, “the swamping of Miami.”
Football could take a few cues from rugby by forcing players to tackle properly. In rugby (union), players must wrap when they tackle and cannot tackle a player high. Forcing to wrap when tackling tends to remove a lot of the car-wreck-like collisions that you see in football where players just try to smack each other as hard as possible. Wrapped tackles are felt by both parties, so they tend to safer.
Football could also take a page from rugby by getting rid of helmets and shoulder pads. If you’re not geared up like that with “protection” that you use just as much as a “weapon” you think really hard about how you tackle somebody.
But most of the solutions to the problem of head injuries basically results in a game that is no longer football.
I’m fine with a game that is no longer football. American football is a boring, constipated game punctuated by endless stops in action, endless pauses while the officials negotiate often arcane and subjective rules, and endless flash-bang extras (all the lights and music &c) used to fill the gaps. It’s really tedious. Contrast it to rugby league (not union but league), which is fluid and fast, and looks like what American football aspires to be: a working-class game predicated in teamwork, muscle, and strategy.
Forget rugby, union or league. Rather we should import Aussie Rules Football. You want to watch a fast and exciting code of football that is tougher than American football or rugby while also lacking the snails pace of the American game the AFL style footie is the way to go.
That said if we did import it we’d need a whole new round of stadium building to accommodate the larger field…
Speaking of larger fields, I wonder if players in the CFL and other Canadian style football leagues suffer the same effects as the Americans do. Overall their players do tend to be smaller and their style of play is more “open” than ours with the larger field. I wonder if it has any impact, positive or negative relative to the US.
On the CFL, looks like the answer is “yes, though maybe not quite as horrifically bad”:
http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/page/Football-at-Crossroads/differences-nfl-canadian-football-league-show-concussions-research-their-effects-players
As George Will once said, football combines the two worst aspects of American life… “violence punctuated by committee meetings”.
I haven’t watched the documentary yet, but I have seen others of it’s kind. It is both frightening and appalling how the NFL has tried to cover up the damage done. One need look no further than the recently deposed/resigned head of their concussion and head injury department… for a league with near-endless resources, the men they had in charge of their in-house team were woefully inadequate – even unqualified, frankly.
I don’t wish to play devil’s advocate here, but players have known for a long time that they were doing permanent damage to themselves by playing (much as boxers do) this game at this level. More than 20 years ago Bruce Smith said as much during his contract negotiations with Buffalo. If forget the exact quote (it was in a TV interview, so it’s probably viewable somewhere), but it was something like “We are ruining our bodies. We are shortening our lives to play this game. Why shouldn’t we be compensated accordingly?”
While I do feel sorry for the Bradshaws and Aikmans (who are probably facing ongoing and increasing medical costs to deal with the problems created by football injuries, as are Howie Long and Ted Hendricks and others), the fact is they cannot reasonably say they had “no idea” what they were getting into. Look at some of the players they played with (Webster, Alzado, Matuszak, Strzelzyk, Waters et al. Have you ever seen Joe Montana try to walk? Did you watch the Jerome Bettis feature on how he gets mobile in the morning? Short version: it takes him four hours before he can make it down the stairs). Can any of these guys honestly say they didn’t see the problems around them?
Boxers know this. So do racing drivers (less so today as that sport is much safer than it used to be). Most assume it will not happen to them.
I’m not suggesting this is in any way the players fault. But fair is fair. Most of them knew what they were getting into, knew that they were trading their health (physical and mental, long term) for fame and fortune.
If we want to feel sorry for someone, I’d suggest we save our pity for players who either didn’t make big money today, or played in an era where the risks were every bit as high but the rewards weren’t. Those are the ones who can’t afford the full time medical care needed.
I doubt fan interest will wane much (but I do agree that watching high energy collisions in today’s game is not the cause for celebration it once was for fans… funny how perspectives change). It will be lawsuits and dwindling player pools that hurt this game (if anything does). It’s hard to imagine that it could ever disappear… but then, it was hard to imagine boxing losing the preeminent place it had in sport in 1974. But it has – at least partly because there are no ‘great’ talents interested in taking up boxing anymore.
If there’s one thing I got from “League of Denial,” it’s that players did *not* know what they were getting themselves into. They knew that football would leave them with physical injuries, sure, but the NFL has spent the last 20 years trying to cover up the overwhelming evidence that the cognitive injuries can be even worse.
And none of this should apply to 12-year-olds playing football, obviously, who can’t weigh the tradeoffs of quick cash and glory now vs. dying at 50 by drinking antifreeze because you can’t stand no longer being able to string a sentence together.
That had to be the most disturbing aspect was that high school kids were showing early signs of CTE. Makes me glad I didn’t play real football until High School (it was all flag before that), but it also makes me wonder when those CTE affected high schoolers started playing. Was it just in HS or did they play pee wee before that?
All sports are potentially dangerous, even soccer with their concussions. So we should ban them all?? This whole thing about people weren’t told of the dangers is ridiculous. Most of us don’t have to be to told anything by society/govt. People actually die in NASCAR, but I don’t hear any outrage there. Schools banning 4 square and other playground games is a joke. This mentality is showing that current society is losing it. Safety is important, but everyone should calm down.
Neil: When talking about adult players (which is what I was referring to, not kids), do you honestly believe they “didn’t know”?
I can’t believe they didn’t. If you come into a league and see what they must have seen (older guys on their way out already showing significant signs of impairment, 4 or 5 year vets already heavily addicted to pain medication), if you spent any time around retired players or any time reading about the fate that befell many of them, it’s impossible not to know “something isn’t right” with these guys. On the other hand, it’s very possible to believe – like the herd of Thompsons Gazelles watching the lions feed on one of their less agile counterparts – “Man, I’m so glad that could never happen to me”.
Again, I’m not suggesting it’s the players fault or that they should be abandoned to their fates. Just that I do not believe that they did not know they were at risk. Several QB’s in particular (including one who played up here (Canada) and is now an active spokesman for brain injuries) have said their families told them they “weren’t the same man” long before their playing careers ended.
I think they knew. I think they had to know. While the NFL’s “research” was shameful and deliberately misleading (something which they will ultimately be forced to pay for by the courts I’m sure), the fact is only a fool would blindly believe what they were told when all evidence around them is to the contrary.
For current and recently retired players, I’d suggest this is more a case of not admitting the obvious, given the possible legal consequences regarding current and future settlements.
To go back to the cigarette analogy: It’s been obvious for 50 years that smoking causes lung cancer, so everyone who took up smoking “knew the risks.” Still, the fact that the tobacco industry was able to spend much of that time saying “the medical evidence still isn’t conclusive” made it a lot easier for people to ignore the whole cancer thing and instead focus on how cool the Marlboro Man looked.
In short: I think players had to suspect something, but there’s a big difference between suspecting and knowing. And the NFL actively prevented anyone from knowing.
Rob, of course all sports carry some aspect of danger. So does walking out your front door every morning. What football presents if these numbers are accurate is a 95% chance that if you participate long term you will end up with a brain injury that will debilitate you mentally to some extent in addition to any physical disability for the rest of your life (and it will likely shorten that life). No other sport comes close to presenting that kind of assured injury save boxing which itself is dying.
And no one will ban it, rather it will slowly die out as people stop letting their kids play it or people stop playing it themselves out of a sense of simple self preservation.
Interesting article above on the CFL, Neil, and I think reason #1 for the difference would be the workout schedule. Guys actually have jobs in the offseason, just like pre-television explosion pro sports.
Ty: I think that’s part of it. But as Dan notes above, it’s also true that because of the larger field players are on average a little smaller and the “heavy” hits are perhaps a little less frequent (at some positions). I wonder if the 1 yard neutral zone reduces head-head contact for linemen as well?
This may not be of interest to non-CFL viewers, but just last weekend the QB for Edmonton was medically cleared to play after a horrendous hit the week before (typical double collision, tackler in front hit him hard and his head snapped back just as the tackler from behind creamed him too).
There was much talk about whether the coach should have allowed him to play just because he was “medically” cleared. It’s a difficult decision to make when team fortunes (and coach/player employment) and a playoff position might be up for grabs, but I would have been happier if the coach said “he’s medically cleared, but we are holding him out for this week at least”.
That didn’t happen. Edmonton lost (badly) anyway, even with their injured starting QB in place. So who benefits from the risk the QB took?
I’m going to play devil’s advocate here. How rampant was steroid abuse in the NFL in the 70s and 80s? What about the heavy cocaine use? Might those vices have a little to do with being messed up in the head? There are legendary stories about steroids and cocaine on teams like the Steelers and Cowboys back in the 70s. Hollywood Henderson would get high DURING games. Even through today, although they have ***TESTING*** in place it is a complete sham. Name me one superstar player that has been busted by this tough NFL drug policy. Why has NOBODY, not one single NFL blowhard, brought this up?
Forrest Gregg is one of the all time great NFL lineman. He was the best player on the offensive line for the Packers under Vince Lombardi. He won 3 Super Bowls and 3 NFL championships. He is now suffering from Parkinson’s. Yet, his name was not involved in the NFL money grab lawsuit. Why? Because he said himself he knew what he was getting into when he played, and that he had the choice to not play. His wife echoed those sentiments as well. Here are some quotes from Gregg himself – “I have been asked to join these lawsuits and my gut feeling, first thought is no,” Gregg said. “I’ve always been an independent type, I never believed in somebody else being responsible for my life and for my well-being.” Gregg said he would still have chosen to play the sport even if he’d known there would be a price to pay later in life, however.
If football is truly that bad, that horrible of a sport, then why do people continue to play? I have yet to hear of 1 guy who has quit playing football in his prime because it is just too dangerous. Hell, Brett Favre got the living tar beat out of him for 20 years and still would play in the right situation.
An even bigger question is why do people continue to cover it? All these websites/writers out there blasting football. Mike Florio, Peter King, Bob Costas, even that dumbass commissioner Roger Goodell. They all go on and on about how dangerous football is. You’d think they’d have a dirty conscience profiting from such a brutal, violent game (their words, not mine). Yet they continue to cover it and rake in fists full of cash. That is the definition of hypocrisy right there folks.
Why isn’t there an NHL lawsuit? Maybe because hockey players aren’t money grabbing fools like these ex-NFL players? Nobody can tell me that hockey isn’t every bit as violent as football. Heck, they even have legal fist fighting in hockey.
I can list a bunch of occupations that are a lot more dangerous than football, and a lot less lucrative – truck driving, ocean fishing/crabbing, logging, the military, police officer, fire fighter and so on and so forth.
It’s the steroids that are the real problem. You have guys who weigh 250 lbs and run 4.5 40 yard dashes. The amount of force these people generate is off the charts. 30 years ago those guys would have been playing offensive line. Remember Refrigerator Perry? Guy was like 290 and everyone was in amazement at how big he was. That was less than 30 years ago. Now he’d either be playing linebacker or he’d weigh 350 lbs. Look at the size of some of these kids that go to major D1 programs. They’re huge while still in high school. You don’t get that way just taking creatine and protein.
Bottom line is there are jobs out there that are dangerous and no matter what they do they will continue to be dangerous. Football just happens to be one of them.
I really don’t think the larger field/neutral zone would help, I think they would allow for more buildup/speed to the collisions that occur. Smaller size of the players, allowing receivers to run before the snap, and a lack of running plays, though, would definitely help.
The reason I think the training is key is because of what findings are leaning toward…it’s the standard collisions being repeated endlessly every play that are pointing toward CTE, not just the “knockouts” and heavy concussions. The endless full pad workouts of the NFL offseason have been fingered as a contributing factor.
I think part of the solution will be what was talked about in theory about the proposed 18 game NFL season: Letting players only play, say, 16 games of the 18. In the case with the Eskimos you mention above, the player could theoretically use his “day” for further recovery.
Randy, they cover it because that’s their job. As long as the public continues to lap the sport up they will cover it or die. Ultimately that’s what will change things though as Neil said is long term as the public loses interest…
“Why isn’t there an NHL lawsuit? Maybe because hockey players aren’t money grabbing fools like these ex-NFL players? Nobody can tell me that hockey isn’t every bit as violent as football. Heck, they even have legal fist fighting in hockey.”
Considering players in the NHL were ripped off by both a corrupt union and a brutal monopoly for 60+ years, and even then had to be dragged kicking and screaming into doing anything about it, they’re not really a great example of standing up for one’s rights.
With hockey, you have more jurisdiction issues, much smaller litigation awards in Canada, and a host of other factors.
Sorry Dan – not buying that one. They can easily go do something else. Bob Costas last year said “the game is unforgivably violent”. Yet he has no problem cashing those Sunday night football checks on a weekly basis. Put your money where your mouth is, Bob. Why would you willingly get paid for something you find so reprehensible?
Randy: I’m going to guess that you haven’t watch the documentary. Far from being something that “NOBODY” has brought up, it actually seems to be the NFL’s current tactic. “Hey, it could have been steroids. Or blow. Don’t blame just football.”
As the documentary pointed out they are seeing evidence of CTE in high school players. My guess is that incidents of use of cocaine and steroids among high schoolers (while not non-existent) is low enough to suggest that this is a really disingenuous argument used to further cast doubt so that people will be less reactionary.
Also, yippee for Forrest Gregg (actually not, if his life is ruined by the long term effects of his playing football), but his opting out of legal actions doesn’t change the fact that the NFL actively worked to discredit legitimate research that would have alerted players to the real dangers. This whole notion that everybody knows the risks focuses on the wrong part of risk, specifically, the actual consequences and the probability of those consequences befalling any given player.
There is something different between: “Hey, you may get your bell rung a few times and late in life it might make a handful of you mistake your breakfast for a top hat every other month” and “A great number of you are going to ask people to use a stun gun on you just so you can go to sleep and you will drink antifreeze to kill yourself to escape the pain.”
If you have seen the doc, I’m not sure how you missed the first bit. But generally to anyone who is a fan of the game it is well worth the time to watch. It’s also free viewing online. The entire show is posted at the link Neil put in the post.
@Randy:
I don’t think hockey is comparable to football in the realm of brain injuries. Sure, as Dan mentioned, all sports, (and life itself) carries some risk. Hockey’s body checking and other physical impacts can be considerable I’m sure. But in football, tackling – hard tackles — are 95% of every single play and on 95% of the players on the field and that’s when we’re talking cognitive dysfunction.
These types of documentaries and the rules changes the NFL (effective? not effective?) has implemented will prevent future lawsuits. What do you sue for? “I hurt my brain playing football, even though I knew there was a danger”
Any player who signs a new contract with the NFL gives up all liability, just like a baseball fan when they go to a game and get hit by a ball, simple as that no more lawsuits.
Media will run with this story for a few days maybe weeks, then football will go on.
Maybe the player pool will drop in 20 to 30 years because of less kids playing (if parents are smart), but that would be a good thing you already have to many NFL teams with players that should not be in the NFL (aka Jaguars).
The only way football goes away is not safety, lawsuits, players being arrested, DUIs, killing gfs, etc… its fans finding the game boring or some other sport takes over. (Soccer haha jk)
We all get on our high horse and the media loves to play to that.. look at big bad NFL hurting players… but as some one mentioned above we all sit there sunday and watch the games, read about the games, talk about them, buy merchandise, and subsidize stadiums.
yeah we are really not concerned about joe shmoe not remembering his kids names, as long as he made our team win!! thats what matters.
LOL here we go again…
Most of the best professional athletes in the world play for the NFL. It’s an unusually demanding, dangerous sport. One could persuasively argue that a civilized society would not approve it, or legally allow it. But I don’t think that the viewing audience of a PBS special is going to shut it down, no matter how civilized that audience may be. (Personally, I just decided ill let my sons playfootball.)
I overheard two of my colleagues talking about the PBS documentary today. They’re both big Cal football fans; one is married to a Cal prof. They’re smart, well educated and not without clout — in their world. But they’re not the fanatics tuning in on Sundays….
The A’s and Raiders are giving the media/public the impression that they’re laying all their cards on the table pertaining to their respective lease negotiations. The JPA, other than cryptically saying it wants both teams, hasn’t provided any details on their side of the lease negotiations. The A’s are gonna cave because frankly, all of their alternate options suck and their situation is more dire than the JPA’s. The Raiders have leverage with (1) Wanting to build in Oakland/AC, (2) Being able to play at Levi’s and (3) the vague threat of relocation. So again I think the A’s will see the short end of the stick and it is sad… I hope the A’s do take the Sacramento route…
“Most of the best professional athletes in the world play for the NFL.”
This is almost certainly demonstrably false. The population of the US is around 313.9M. The population of the world is 7.18 billion.
By my math, that means the US accounts for about 4.37% of the world’s population. Even if the US is overrepresent the population of “world’s best athletes” it’s highly unlikely they account for all or even most of them. That’s to say nothing of what makes someone “best.” Is Mo Farah a better athlete than Brandon Wheedon? Heck even within the context of popular US sports, it’s a debatable point. Is some 320lb lineman who can push someone else for 4 seconds before taking a 35 second break a better athlete than, say, the average NBA player, or an NHL goalie?
Anyway, I had a hard time taking anything else you said after that seriously. Also, good luck to your kids.
Michael: Well said.
Talk about negating your own argument there, Berry/George. Typical one sport parochialism. I’d suggest you try watching some other sports… you’ll quickly find NFL players are some way down the list of “the greatest” athletes in the world. That isn’t to say some aren’t in phenomenal condition, but it’s horses for courses…
Terri: I agree that the A’s are most likely to reach an agreement, but I don’t find it at all sad. Oakland fans support the A’s… not in the numbers New Yorkers support the Yankees, but so what?
Wolff has a partner in Oakland who wants to work with him. The league to which he belongs also wants him in Oakland, and at least thus far has shown no interest in allowing him to move elsewhere (for free, at least).
Unless MLB changes it’s position (or he decides he is willing to pay for San Jose), his options are very much limited. Even if he wants to sell rather than stay in Oakland, his best option is to negotiate the best deal he can for a new facility and then put the team on the market.
John, small correction. Wolff has no partner in Oakland. Rather he has a city expecting him to privately foot the bill for a ballpark and assume all the risk in a city Wolff is pretty damn sure he won’t be able to make his money back in. And the city’s own history with the Raiders and their utter failure to sell PSL’s bears out Wolff’s fears. And MLB knows that which is why they don’t necessarily want the A’s in Oakland either. If they did their blue ribbon panel would have come out and said as much in the last 5 years.
No the solution or the league and A’s is San Jose, but as you say, it comes down to Wolff offering up some compensation to the Gnats.
Dan:
I disagree that the city is unwilling to be Wolff’s partner. They have tried to work with him (perhaps not offering as much cash as he would like, but they have tried). The fact that he is unwilling to partner with them (and has, in fact, said that there is no option that he would consider “in” Oakland) does not negate their interest in working something out with the A’s.
As for MLB, they have said they want the A’s to work something out in Oakland. It may or may not be possible, but that is what they want to happen.
Football shouldn’t be banned, but it has no business in HS or middle schools! And no tax money should be used to promote the sport at any level. 6 HS kids have died so far this season and another is in a coma in Chicago. Yet the media is sweeping all these dead kids under the carpet for the NFL.
Sadly, I think the NFL will be doing just as well 20-30 years from now as it is today.
Really, though, the largest “used” group of people here is NCAA football players. At least NFL players have a shot at a payday. That’s pretty different from the NFL.
There shouldn’t be NCAA football. I hope that’s the next thing Frontline investigates. For every Stanford out there, there are about 10 Sac States.
My son expressed an interest in trying out for his HS football team. After watching some games live and on TV, I asked him about it again, and his answer was, “No, it looks like it hurts.” Exactly. Great response.
Well the “Build in Oakland only” rants from the East Bay and Frisco media have been going on for years. It’s the same two templates: If the A’s are winning, it proves MLB can work in Oakland. If the A’s are losing, it’s because the bad owners have it in for Oakland, and the team needs to be sold to someone who will build in Oakland. But none of it has convinced MLB to formally select a ballpark site in Oakland. Because no workable solution has been found. Otherwise, Selig would have been happy to march off to Oakland and high-five everybody over the end of his Oakland nightmare. (All Selig has ever done was show up for the press conference for the ill-fated Fremont ballpark project.) So Selig’s Oakland nightmare continues, despite the best efforts of SFgate, KTVU, etc
You are so right Rudy…
I just read Scott Ostler piece. He, rightly, calls out that is basically bullshit. But he wrote it anyway.
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My major problem with the local media on the A’s stadium issue is that they don’t do their homework, in a general sense. Ray Ratto, Scott Ostler, Monte Poole, etc. are not bad writers. I think they are more qualified to write about events on the field than most guys sitting on a bar stool in a sports bar. But not much more, honestly.
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They are intellectually lazy when it comes to the A’s stadium. Matier and Ross call out in the very article that spawned this post that the Raiders “plan” is $300M short. At a stadium site that already exists. That is a monumental shortfall at this stage of the game. But, the fact that they call it out shows they have done some homework. I have yet to read an article by almost anyone but Mark Purdy that isn’t pulled straight out of said writer’s ass. It gets very old to read opinions that don’t acknowledge reality.
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Why aren’t these folks pointing out that even the team that WANTS to stay in Oakland can’t? Because they gave up any shred of authority/high ground on the issue of teams in Oakland long ago and they will still be writing about how screwed over Oakland got by rich dudes in 20 years. Much like people will still be saying JLS is the next big thing and the Oakland crime problem is just a perception issue based on newspaper headlines.
Let’s just hope, by then, the A’s are playing in a place that is a palace dedicated to baseball in a city that we can all get to when we want to
Dear J. Bladen
The East Bay and Frisco media refuse to acknowledge the economic giant that is the South Bay. They won’t recognize that privately financing a ballpark in San Jose is doable but doing so in Oakland is not. Anyway, they are of the mind that the rich, greedy owners are rich enough and don’t need to make a return on their investment, anyway.But I read a column by one of these guys, as I’ve said, who really believes Wolff would make his money back by building a ballpark privately in Oakland and then selling the team for a bundle. That bundle won’t be so big if the franchise comes attached with a mortgage on a stadium that doesn’t generate enough revenues to pay the bills…cmon man…
And Mike M
Some people were born strong, some were born weak… if you are afraid of being hit or doing the hitting.. then yes maybe your son should not play football… football should be for people who love the game… yes its rough but……. so what… that is the sport… it still wont detract from those who love the game at first catch or tackle… you anti sports ppl are really amazing because I think some of your arguments are racial, class and business biased… that’s all… be honest… I can respect that… but the “ooo its so violent, but I watch it anyway” I can see right through you guys… anyway sports football will be around for another 30-50 yrs… I don’t think Neil or this website will stop it.
Wait, are we anti-sports, or do we watch football regardless? I’m confused.
You’re obviously leading a one man campaign to stop football, Neil.
Neil you are being called out… I don’t take you for a coward… so I hope you can respond to me and Ty….
If we look at it from the standpoint that a municipality would have to take before building a stadium: While the NFL is gaining more and more in TV rights, it’s mostly because the sport was built as appointment television and people don’t fast-forward it as much as regular shows. How much of the NFL’s popularity is just inertia? How much of it is “my city’s team”, which can slowly be bled away by other sports? How much of it is as a random number generator for a multitude of group number games the league/teams make little money on?
Take a look at the NHL. Do you think someone 15 years ago saw a Russian league poaching one of the top 5 players in the league and a good deal of talent, or a team moving back to Winnipeg of all places? Or that top-down placing of teams wouldn’t help the situation in the US, instead of a “bottom-up” infusion of American talent (watch the USA in Sochi 2014)?
tl;dr: How can any council/state-province/federal government be the majority investor in something like this if we can’t explain where it’ll be in 10 years, much less 30-40?
Just to correct a bit to the post above, the it should be “instead of the bottom-up infusion of American talent we are seeing”
Berry: Called out for what? If it’s for being “weak” because I’d prefer my son (and everybody’s sons, really) not to risk his mental functions on a game, then I’ll happily plead guilty. I’m also the kind of weak that is opposed to kids playing in traffic.
If anyone cares, I used to watch football, though it was never my favorite sport. (I grew up in New York in the ’70s, so baseball and basketball are my sports; the Jets and Giants were barely worth noticing then.) I watched my first Super Bowl in years last year, but I won’t be watching this year — after seeing “League of Denial” the thought of watching people knock heads like that turns my stomach; it’d feel like watching that NBC Sports “shoot an elephant in the face” show.
That’s my choice, though. If you enjoy watching football (or, I guess, elephants getting shot in the face), then more power to you. I do wonder, though, whether we’re seeing the start of a long, slow public opinion shift, especially if a younger generation grows up that thinks of football as more than just a fun Sunday diversion. When I was a kid, I never would have thought that cigarette smoking rates would plunge by more than half and that smoking would be banned in virtually all public spaces, but once the tide had turned, it happened pretty quickly.
Berry and Ty, for what it’s worth, at my age (55), I still engage in what some would consider a high-risk sport: Cycling.
So even though I engage in high-speed riding with way less protection than a football player uses, I still consider it a safer sport than football.
I should note for Berry, Neil and Mike that my above comment was re:football was highly sarcastic, apologies if it wasn’t understood that way.
You need to use the <sarcasm></sarcasm> tag!
But that’s no fun! :-(
#sarcasm?
To make sarcasm work, you have to end it with something that’s extremely obvious.
Let’s say I was to start touting the WNBA right now. Minnesota Lynx won it all last night, woohoo!
Did you notice? Me neither. I may have just doubled the number of comments about it on every blog in North America, combined.
Is this sarcasm?
http://www.theonion.com/articles/wnba-finals-dominated-by-minnesota-lynxs-8months-p,34183/
I don’t know if it is sarcasm, but it is funny.
Berry/George:
Lew Wolff’s franchise is profitable in it’s present location. Even in the Oakland you so clearly hate, it would be more profitable in a new stadium (and, given that MLB welfare distribution does not exempt franchises in new or renovated facilities, he’ll keep getting checks).
So, yes, in fact, the team would be more saleable and more profitable at a new facility. Probably even if that facility carried a $200m mortgage (worrying about short term finances is foolhardy. The new stadium would continue generating increased revenues long after the mortgage is paid – see Arsenal Football club et al).
BTW, neither MLB nor fans have failed to notice the economic benefits of south bay. All many of us are saying is that Wolff wants to get that benefit for free when in reality he needs to purchase the rights to it if he wants it. He could (and arguably should) sell the A’s back to MLB (if he can’t find a buyer), then apply for an expansion franchise in San Jose if that’s where he wants to be. He hasn’t done either of those things. I wonder why…
And in case you hadn’t noticed, this thread is actually about football, not Oakland stadium issues… do you have anything to say about football injuries? Or is it all San Jose all the time?
Mike: When will the “The Lynx need a new stadium” cries begin in Minnesota??? I mean, they are champs (something the Vikings have never managed…), why shouldn’t they have their own facility?
Think of the spin off economic benefits….
Hey Mike M. I’m exactly your age and I hit a deer on a blind turn at 33 mph while bicycling last year and separated my shoulder (just like Alex Smith against Seattle) as well as breaking my helmet.
I still bike, but my preference is for my son not to ride in the same hills I do.
Detroit has a brand new, taxpayer-funded stadium and no MLB competition anywhere nearby. The A’s play in a deteriorating football stadium while a shining jewel of a stadium sits 12 miles away. Big difference. Comerica Park is 63% publicly funded, as opposed to the 0% the A’s would get in Oakland. The same 0% holds true in San Jose, but the corporate dollars are there to make up for the lack of public dollars. Detroit is one of the dozens of cities in MLB that needed a new ballpark in the last 20 years and got it done. Oakland cannot get it done…
Lets not forget..Detroit does not have 11 Fortune 500 Companies. The Detroit Metropolitan area may well have 11–if you count everything from Auburn Hills to Ann Arbor(beautiful area). But if you’re going to include those, then you need to include a whole bunch of Bay Area companies within 35-45 miles of Oakland as well. However u are right Berry..Oakland needs to ask those rich indian investors for money for the stadium cost if they sdon’t want the A’s to go
@Steven, you write:
“6 HS kids have died so far this season”
I encountered the following statistic in one of the newspaper stories that covered one of the high school player’s deaths: on average, during every American high school football season, 12 children die as a result of injuries suffered from play on the field.
I simply did not realize the figure was that high.
And you’re absolutely right that nearly every national media outlet makes little light of this. It’s only covered with significance in the local press.
@MikeM, you write:
“the largest ‘used’ group of people here is NCAA football players.”
I agree that they’re used, but the even larger group that’s used is high school football players.
We casually speak of the football ‘pipeline’ from high school, to college, to the pros. But it’s not a pipeline at all, it’s a funnel.
At the high school level, over 100,000 kids play the sport.
At the NCAA Div 1 level, about 25,000 scholarships are given across all schools.
At the NFL level, there are about 2,000 active players across all teams in any given season.
So 100,000 high schoolers try to make it to the college game. 75,000 don’t make it, leaving them used and damaged.
25,000 college kids try to make it to the pro game. 23,000 don’t make it, leaving them used and damaged.
And each year, the NFL disgorges hundreds of players after an average 3-year career, many of whom make no more than the league minimum each of those years, and most of them have years of severe physical and mental defects to look forward to.
One thing to be careful of with newspapers’ HS athlete death stats: They’ll often mix in players who die of, say, heart conditions or heatstroke, which while still tragic is less a direct result of playing football per se.
The number of players who die of head and spinal injuries is lower, though still disturbingly high. And, of course, we have no idea how many high school athletes die years later in part thanks to head injuries they suffered in high school.