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What Would the End of Football Look Like? (2012)

grantland.com

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Re: What Would the End of Football Look Like? (2012)

#11

Post by VLM »

Perhaps the collapse has already begun.

1) My middle school kid is in cross country... all "school athletes" must attend district wide concussion class (they probably blew it off, after all it is CC not tackle football) and parents have to sign off that they've been given access to various concussion resources. Nobody found this overly unusual or interesting, its just part of athletics now. Soon it'll just be part of school athletics that football means touch not tackle or it means what we used to call soccer.

(For foreign readers cross country is hiking in the woods except you don't wear a pack and you run. So mile times are quite a bit lower than track and you're about a thousand times more likely to get heat exhaustion or twist your ankle than to get a concussion in that particular sport)

2) Look at average age of baseball fans, late 50s and that average has been going up more than one year per calendar year. There are generational trends and football may very well be a WW2/Boomer generation sport. Once "their" generations are gone, that's it.

Looking at demographics of the local pro basketball team I think we're more likely to see pro basketball go away before football ... volleyball is very popular and telegenic.

Re: What Would the End of Football Look Like? (2012)

#12

Post by PopeOfNope »

imglorp wrote: post #5

Pro players are grownups and can make their own decisions about life altering injuries. But I think we'll see the end of high school football very soon, when the lawsuits begin and school insurance steps in. I predict we'll replace it with flag, touch, and rugby and that will be a further dig to the NFL.

But I think we'll see the end of high school football very soon, when the lawsuits begin and school insurance steps in.

It'll never happen. There's way too much community support for football. And thank god. There's no other sport out there that teaches you about life quite like football.

Re: What Would the End of Football Look Like? (2012)

#13

Post by PopeOfNope »

elchief wrote: post #9

What would the end of grantland look like? It would look like today, sadly. http://espnmediazone.com/us/espn-statement-regarding-grantla... I'm not really sure why Simmons needed espn to start grantland. Perhaps he was under contract. I would have read it, due to his writing, either way. When he didn't show up to cover the Super Bowl or NBA Championships, I knew it was over.

It would look like today, sadly.

To the extent that fans replace football with another sport (instead of meth or oxy)

Yeah, shame.

Re: What Would the End of Football Look Like? (2012)

#14

Post by PopeOfNope »

I don't understand the hard on people around here have for predicting the collapse of sports. It's like the very idea of getting revenge on the jocks makes you all salivate. Revenge of the nerds writ large? Or is it an extension of the 'toxic testosterone' propaganda?

Re: What Would the End of Football Look Like? (2012)

#15

Post by cmurf »

PopeOfNope wrote: post #12
imglorp wrote: post #5

Pro players are grownups and can make their own decisions about life altering injuries. But I think we'll see the end of high school football very soon, when the lawsuits begin and school insurance steps in. I predict we'll replace it with flag, touch, and rugby and that will be a further dig to the NFL.

But I think we'll see the end of high school football very soon, when the lawsuits begin and school insurance steps in. It'll never happen. There's way too much community support for football. And thank god. There's no other sport out there that teaches you about life quite like football.

Right, because the other 90% of the planetary population hasn't learned about life.

Re: What Would the End of Football Look Like? (2012)

#16

Post by jamessb »

untog wrote: post #7
Synaesthesia wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's interesting is that in Rugby you wear basically no protective gear, which is probably why it has less injuries. With a helmet and armour you feel much more invulnerable.

Also tackles above the waist are forbidden. In American Football you can pretty much just throw your entire body anywhere, with unsurprising results.

It is tackles above the shoulder (not waist) that are forbidden (along with striking an opponent with a stiff-arm whilst tackling, tripping, picking up and dropping a player etc.).

Law 10.4 specifies what is considered 'dangerous play': http://laws.worldrugby.org/?law=10.4

Re: What Would the End of Football Look Like? (2012)

#17

Post by PopeOfNope »

cmurf wrote: post #15
PopeOfNope wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But I think we'll see the end of high school football very soon, when the lawsuits begin and school insurance steps in. It'll never happen. There's way too much community support for football. And thank god. There's no other sport out there that teaches you about life quite like football.

Right, because the other 90% of the planetary population hasn't learned about life.

Nothing I said suggests otherwise. Why the sarcasm and hostility?

Re: What Would the End of Football Look Like? (2012)

#18

Post by egypturnash »

PopeOfNope wrote: post #12
imglorp wrote: post #5

Pro players are grownups and can make their own decisions about life altering injuries. But I think we'll see the end of high school football very soon, when the lawsuits begin and school insurance steps in. I predict we'll replace it with flag, touch, and rugby and that will be a further dig to the NFL.

But I think we'll see the end of high school football very soon, when the lawsuits begin and school insurance steps in. It'll never happen. There's way too much community support for football. And thank god. There's no other sport out there that teaches you about life quite like football.

...Okay. I'll bite. What have I missed learning by never playing or watching football?

Re: What Would the End of Football Look Like? (2012)

#19

Post by uououuttt »

Synaesthesia wrote: post #6
ghaff wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, the rest of the world has a football-like sport (rugby--sorry, Australia) which suggests that there's a fair bit of demand for that general type of sport--and not just in the US. Rugby has its own issues with concussions although probably not as much as American football. In general, I agree with the article that football isn't "too big to fail." I'm not sure lawsuits is so much the path though as kids sim…

What's interesting is that in Rugby you wear basically no protective gear, which is probably why it has less injuries. With a helmet and armour you feel much more invulnerable.

It's also that American football has a lot of downtime between the relatively short plays, whereas Rugby has a more constant style of play. An entire NFL game consists of roughly 11-12 minutes of actual gameplay -- the most recent numbers for rugby I could find put it at ~35 minutes. So, players are less fatigued and can hit harder and faster.

Re: What Would the End of Football Look Like? (2012)

#20

Post by Synaesthesia »

srtjstjsj wrote: post #10
untog wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also tackles above the waist are forbidden. In American Football you can pretty much just throw your entire body anywhere, with unsurprising results.

this video disagrees with your claim about rugby: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ1Mt0LdCfY

You can't tackle someone around the neck in rugby or too high, it's a foul called a "high tackle"
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