the dangerous precision worship
October 13, 2014 7:18 AM Subscribe
Among a rising chorus of folks speaking out about problems caused by America's obsession with football at every level, author (and fan) Steve Almond's voice stands out the loudest. His new book Against Football argues that "our allegiance to football legitimizes and even fosters within us a tolerance for violence, greed, racism, and homophobia." In a nutshell "Fans should stop watching." Needless to say the book has provoked a strong reaction in fans (and defensive sportswriters), most notably in New York Mag, with Jonathan Chait's personal story of how football made him a better person: "In Defense of Male Aggression: What Liberals Get Wrong About Football".
Almond and Chait met on HuffPo live to debate the issue last week. It got a little heated.
Almond and Chait met on HuffPo live to debate the issue last week. It got a little heated.
From the Chait article:
But a set of eyes is also all you need to see that nothing like the effect of NFL brain damage is replicated at the high-school or youth level. More than a million boys play high-school football every year. If the effects of those games remotely approached those afflicting former professionals, there would be millions of American men walking around with brain damage and a national epidemic of male suicide. The tragic cases of brain-damaged NFL veterans that have filled the news — the Junior Seaus, the Dave Duersons — would be replicated on a scale a thousand times as large. That something like this has escaped attention until now defies plausibility.
From the NYT, last year:
Suicide rates among middle-aged Americans have risen sharply in the past decade, prompting concern that a generation of baby boomers who have faced years of economic worry and easy access to prescription painkillers may be particularly vulnerable to self-inflicted harm.
More people now die of suicide than in car accidents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which published the findings in Friday’s issue of its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. In 2010 there were 33,687 deaths from motor vehicle crashes and 38,364 suicides.
Suicide has typically been viewed as a problem of teenagers and the elderly, and the surge in suicide rates among middle-aged Americans is surprising.
Now, obviously the increasing suicide rate may have very little or nothing to do with brain damage from high school football. But the fact that Chait's main bit of proof that youth football isn't harmful boils down to "if it were, we would be seeing a lot of suicides, but we aren't" while the USA is, indeed, in a era of peak suicide, tells you a lot about how careful and research-based his argument is.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:36 AM on October 13, 2014 [56 favorites]
But a set of eyes is also all you need to see that nothing like the effect of NFL brain damage is replicated at the high-school or youth level. More than a million boys play high-school football every year. If the effects of those games remotely approached those afflicting former professionals, there would be millions of American men walking around with brain damage and a national epidemic of male suicide. The tragic cases of brain-damaged NFL veterans that have filled the news — the Junior Seaus, the Dave Duersons — would be replicated on a scale a thousand times as large. That something like this has escaped attention until now defies plausibility.
From the NYT, last year:
Suicide rates among middle-aged Americans have risen sharply in the past decade, prompting concern that a generation of baby boomers who have faced years of economic worry and easy access to prescription painkillers may be particularly vulnerable to self-inflicted harm.
More people now die of suicide than in car accidents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which published the findings in Friday’s issue of its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. In 2010 there were 33,687 deaths from motor vehicle crashes and 38,364 suicides.
Suicide has typically been viewed as a problem of teenagers and the elderly, and the surge in suicide rates among middle-aged Americans is surprising.
Now, obviously the increasing suicide rate may have very little or nothing to do with brain damage from high school football. But the fact that Chait's main bit of proof that youth football isn't harmful boils down to "if it were, we would be seeing a lot of suicides, but we aren't" while the USA is, indeed, in a era of peak suicide, tells you a lot about how careful and research-based his argument is.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 7:36 AM on October 13, 2014 [56 favorites]
"our allegiance to football legitimizes and even fosters within us a tolerance for violence, greed, racism, and homophobia."
Let's not forget rape and the horror of "football towns".
posted by Artw at 7:39 AM on October 13, 2014 [12 favorites]
Let's not forget rape and the horror of "football towns".
posted by Artw at 7:39 AM on October 13, 2014 [12 favorites]
Also: HS Football coach cancels 14-15 season because of injuries.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:44 AM on October 13, 2014
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:44 AM on October 13, 2014
Almond:
"Ironic distance allows us to separate ourselves from the big, complicated moral systems around us (political, religious, familial), to sit in judgment of others rather than ourselves. It’s the reason, as we zoom into the twilight years of our imperial reign, that Reality TV has become our designated guilty pleasure... Those spray-tanned lunatics we happily revile are merely turned-out versions of our private selves, the whores we hide from public view."
Whew! Good stuff
posted by batfish at 7:45 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
"Ironic distance allows us to separate ourselves from the big, complicated moral systems around us (political, religious, familial), to sit in judgment of others rather than ourselves. It’s the reason, as we zoom into the twilight years of our imperial reign, that Reality TV has become our designated guilty pleasure... Those spray-tanned lunatics we happily revile are merely turned-out versions of our private selves, the whores we hide from public view."
Whew! Good stuff
posted by batfish at 7:45 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
But a set of eyes is also all you need to see that nothing like the effect of NFL brain damage is replicated at the high-school or youth level. More than a million boys play high-school football every year.
My understanding is that the damage is cumulative. It's not like NFL players suddenly begin getting concussions once they become NFL players, having escaped it all through high school and college ball.
Football channels boys’ chauvinistic belligerence into supervised forms, shapes them within boundaries, and gives them positive meaning.
/rolls eyes
posted by rtha at 7:51 AM on October 13, 2014 [15 favorites]
My understanding is that the damage is cumulative. It's not like NFL players suddenly begin getting concussions once they become NFL players, having escaped it all through high school and college ball.
Football channels boys’ chauvinistic belligerence into supervised forms, shapes them within boundaries, and gives them positive meaning.
/rolls eyes
posted by rtha at 7:51 AM on October 13, 2014 [15 favorites]
Our new cultural male ideal is basically a list of negative male stereotypes that many men now seem to have internalized as true. It's pitiful and gross. That people so often feel compelled to defend football on some weird grounds having more to do with how people feel about male and female social relations in the culture generally should make it pretty clear there's more going on in people's relationship to football these days than just casual pastime, but people are very attached both to this new negative model of masculinity and all of the cultural baggage, like football, that goes with it.
I used to love football as a kid, but what it's become in the culture--a weird purity test for some, an identity marker for others, etc.--it's all just too forced and desperate feeling. I don't think less of people for still liking it, but I don't see how they filter out all the BS, and I don't understand what they get out of the game that they couldn't get from something less obviously full of BS and associated with so many other bad trends in the culture. I don't get much satisfaction out of watching sports but don't begrudge people who do. But I don't understand it, and probably never will.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:53 AM on October 13, 2014 [22 favorites]
I used to love football as a kid, but what it's become in the culture--a weird purity test for some, an identity marker for others, etc.--it's all just too forced and desperate feeling. I don't think less of people for still liking it, but I don't see how they filter out all the BS, and I don't understand what they get out of the game that they couldn't get from something less obviously full of BS and associated with so many other bad trends in the culture. I don't get much satisfaction out of watching sports but don't begrudge people who do. But I don't understand it, and probably never will.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:53 AM on October 13, 2014 [22 favorites]
Sayerville, NJ cancels its football season after a “hazing” (i.e. rape) scandal.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 7:54 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by 1970s Antihero at 7:54 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
I've been struggling with giving up on the NFL for some time now. Once a year we go to a Browns game and something just feels off at times. Watching the game itself and being with fellow fans is fun, but all the stuff in between has gotten increasingly troubling. Ever since 9/11 there has been lots of "patriotism by guilt" going on and lately the teams seem to be dragging out as many people as possible to show how much they care about the community. "Everyone cheer for the orphans in the 'Seats of Honor' in section 105!"
In addition I have trouble doing fantasy football anymore. You see your list of players and a series of red P's, Q's and O's begin appearing next to their names. These people are getting hurt and I'm measuring that against how it will affect my point total next week. It's kind of sickening, really.
But I haven't completely quit. It's like leaving the Catholic Church - every argument I've heard against it is correct and isolated there is no go argument for staying. But it isn't the game itself that is hard to quit, it's the cultural connection to other people, some whom I have very little in common with otherwise due to my socialization issues. Just abandoning my fantasy teams is easy - everyone else can have easy wins this year and I don't have to say why I'm not playing again next year. Explaining to my father why I won't go to our traditional annual Browns game will be much more difficult.
But if things are going to happen it is going to have to be like that for one person at a time. The whole country won't quit at once, it's too ingrained. But if the more sensitive people don't start taking the first steps it will never happen at all.
And just when the Browns were looking good this year.
posted by charred husk at 8:05 AM on October 13, 2014 [22 favorites]
In addition I have trouble doing fantasy football anymore. You see your list of players and a series of red P's, Q's and O's begin appearing next to their names. These people are getting hurt and I'm measuring that against how it will affect my point total next week. It's kind of sickening, really.
But I haven't completely quit. It's like leaving the Catholic Church - every argument I've heard against it is correct and isolated there is no go argument for staying. But it isn't the game itself that is hard to quit, it's the cultural connection to other people, some whom I have very little in common with otherwise due to my socialization issues. Just abandoning my fantasy teams is easy - everyone else can have easy wins this year and I don't have to say why I'm not playing again next year. Explaining to my father why I won't go to our traditional annual Browns game will be much more difficult.
But if things are going to happen it is going to have to be like that for one person at a time. The whole country won't quit at once, it's too ingrained. But if the more sensitive people don't start taking the first steps it will never happen at all.
And just when the Browns were looking good this year.
posted by charred husk at 8:05 AM on October 13, 2014 [22 favorites]
Yeah. I've been backing slowly away from the NFL too, like all right-thinking people. Which gives me pause. Is this just another class-inflected moral panic, a la "crack babies," or is the sport really irredeemable? In other words, is football unacceptable for humanitarian reasons like boxing, or is it unacceptable for cultural reasons like NASCAR? That's Chait's question, and it's worth taking seriously.
posted by hal incandenza at 8:12 AM on October 13, 2014 [13 favorites]
posted by hal incandenza at 8:12 AM on October 13, 2014 [13 favorites]
Our new cultural male ideal is basically a list of negative male stereotypes that many men now seem to have internalized as true.
Yes, this!
The folks on the defense-of-football side seem to inevitable want to closely define masculinity as aggression and violence--and perhaps drinking beer while you enjoy displays of aggression and violence. That is an awfully narrow and none-too-flattering definition, and has no room for men who are characterized (or, at least, seek to be characterized) by intellect, pursuit of wisdom, and compassion for those in need. In Tolkienesque terms, I'm trying to point to Gandalf as an ideal, while Charlotte Allen and Jonathan Chait think I don't have enough appreciation for orcs.* Or, in Walking Dead terms, I really want to be a Herschel. Even brain-dead Zombies are capable of aggression and violence. Surely we can rise above that.
There's also a lot of confusion in the football defenders between intentional and incidental injury. Yes, deaths happen in gymnastics, but not because an opposing vaulter is jumping up and slamming into you as hard as he can. Yes, deaths happen in auto racing, but running into another car and injuring someone is a horrible mistake, not a strategy for victory. Football players, certainly at the pro level, and before that in some parts of Texas, is about doing bodily harm to halt the other team. Chait knows that, or else he would claim that gymnastics, with its higher per capita dealt toll (if you can trust his numbers) is the most masculine sport of all. Clearly, he doesn't think so. Yet it requires strength. It requires skill. It causes the deaths of more amateurs, he claims. So why not agree to end football and encourage athletic young men to become gymnasts? Because only football has intentional harm to others as a centerpiece** You can cover over that reality with terms like aggression, physicality, simulated war, but it boils down to intentional harm in order to move a ball down a field in a game.***
*Not calling football players orcs here, except for Ray Rice, maybe. Just saying that orcs are perfect exemplars of masculinity as defined by Allen and Chait, who exalt the orcish qualities in football.
**Okay, and boxing/MMA. But we are talking about high school sports.
***And if the harm isn't intentional *cough* *cough*, then boy does everyone suck at playing this game.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:19 AM on October 13, 2014 [8 favorites]
Yes, this!
The folks on the defense-of-football side seem to inevitable want to closely define masculinity as aggression and violence--and perhaps drinking beer while you enjoy displays of aggression and violence. That is an awfully narrow and none-too-flattering definition, and has no room for men who are characterized (or, at least, seek to be characterized) by intellect, pursuit of wisdom, and compassion for those in need. In Tolkienesque terms, I'm trying to point to Gandalf as an ideal, while Charlotte Allen and Jonathan Chait think I don't have enough appreciation for orcs.* Or, in Walking Dead terms, I really want to be a Herschel. Even brain-dead Zombies are capable of aggression and violence. Surely we can rise above that.
There's also a lot of confusion in the football defenders between intentional and incidental injury. Yes, deaths happen in gymnastics, but not because an opposing vaulter is jumping up and slamming into you as hard as he can. Yes, deaths happen in auto racing, but running into another car and injuring someone is a horrible mistake, not a strategy for victory. Football players, certainly at the pro level, and before that in some parts of Texas, is about doing bodily harm to halt the other team. Chait knows that, or else he would claim that gymnastics, with its higher per capita dealt toll (if you can trust his numbers) is the most masculine sport of all. Clearly, he doesn't think so. Yet it requires strength. It requires skill. It causes the deaths of more amateurs, he claims. So why not agree to end football and encourage athletic young men to become gymnasts? Because only football has intentional harm to others as a centerpiece** You can cover over that reality with terms like aggression, physicality, simulated war, but it boils down to intentional harm in order to move a ball down a field in a game.***
*Not calling football players orcs here, except for Ray Rice, maybe. Just saying that orcs are perfect exemplars of masculinity as defined by Allen and Chait, who exalt the orcish qualities in football.
**Okay, and boxing/MMA. But we are talking about high school sports.
***And if the harm isn't intentional *cough* *cough*, then boy does everyone suck at playing this game.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:19 AM on October 13, 2014 [8 favorites]
That Chait piece is just so amazing, even for the always loathsome Chait, that I almost can't look away; I keep having to go back and read pieces of it again to make sure I remembered them right. It's like someone set out to write the perfect model of punditry as the self-righteous, moralistic defense of the indefensible, the knee-jerk denial without even bare comprehension of the other team's arguments. Like he seems to sincerely think that the reason you write an essay, basically, is to say NUH-UH! as loudly as possible to your ideology's designated enemies and cheerlead for your designated cause rather than to engage with facts, ideas, or a process of reasoning. It's so unselfaware about its real message (better title: "In Defense of Toxic Masculinity and Authoritarianism," by Jonathan Chait) that there's something almost meta-footballish about it — like, he's right, he really does seem to have absorbed some key lessons from the sport, but they were lessons about toxic masculinity, willingly attacking even arbitrarily designated foes, and the preeminent importance of point-scoring.
posted by RogerB at 8:20 AM on October 13, 2014 [16 favorites]
posted by RogerB at 8:20 AM on October 13, 2014 [16 favorites]
Like he seems to sincerely think that the reason you write an essay, basically, is to say NUH-UH! as loudly as possible to your ideology's designated enemies
that's all I expect from any piece of writing that has "liberals" in the title
posted by thelonius at 8:24 AM on October 13, 2014 [20 favorites]
that's all I expect from any piece of writing that has "liberals" in the title
posted by thelonius at 8:24 AM on October 13, 2014 [20 favorites]
Is this just another class-inflected moral panic, a la "crack babies," or is the sport really irredeemable? In other words, is football unacceptable for humanitarian reasons like boxing, or is it unacceptable for cultural reasons like NASCAR? That's Chait's question, and it's worth taking seriously.
I suppose it is worth taking seriously. It's a shame Chait doesn't.
Here's an article from noted anti-football organization ESPN, based on a study funded by the football-haters at the NFL:
With high school football playoffs starting around the country, a leading medical body on Wednesday released a 306-page, NFL-funded report that found the sport not only has by far the highest rates of concussions at the interscholastic level, but also that the average high school player is nearly twice as likely to suffer a brain injury as a college player.
A panel of medical experts convened by the National Academy of Sciences analyzed a series of academic studies, with the most recent showing that college football players suffer concussions at a rate of 6.3 concussions per 10,000 "athletic exposures" -- each exposure representing a practice or game. For high school football players, the comparable figure is 11.2.
The report noted that most concussion symptoms disappear within two weeks as measured by current testing tools but that 10 to 20 percent of concussion sufferers "are still experiencing symptoms anywhere from weeks to months to years later." Across sports, 250,000 concussions were reported to emergency rooms in 2009 for people under age 19, up from 150,000 in 2001.
Pretty clear, I think, that this is much more akin to boxing than NASCAR
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:24 AM on October 13, 2014 [9 favorites]
I suppose it is worth taking seriously. It's a shame Chait doesn't.
Here's an article from noted anti-football organization ESPN, based on a study funded by the football-haters at the NFL:
With high school football playoffs starting around the country, a leading medical body on Wednesday released a 306-page, NFL-funded report that found the sport not only has by far the highest rates of concussions at the interscholastic level, but also that the average high school player is nearly twice as likely to suffer a brain injury as a college player.
A panel of medical experts convened by the National Academy of Sciences analyzed a series of academic studies, with the most recent showing that college football players suffer concussions at a rate of 6.3 concussions per 10,000 "athletic exposures" -- each exposure representing a practice or game. For high school football players, the comparable figure is 11.2.
The report noted that most concussion symptoms disappear within two weeks as measured by current testing tools but that 10 to 20 percent of concussion sufferers "are still experiencing symptoms anywhere from weeks to months to years later." Across sports, 250,000 concussions were reported to emergency rooms in 2009 for people under age 19, up from 150,000 in 2001.
Pretty clear, I think, that this is much more akin to boxing than NASCAR
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:24 AM on October 13, 2014 [9 favorites]
I used to take a live-and-let-live approach to football. It's not my thing, but I engage in plenty of activities that aren't most people's cup of tea. I know that some of my activities may inconvenience football fans, but football, from traffic to TV schedules, inconveniences me directly to a degree I can be live-and-let-live.
Then I had to buy the Cincinnati Bengals a stadium. I witness how the team fails to give back to the community who bought them the palace--we had to get their permission to build a building that would bring jobs to the city, and that required a concession. My fear is that, midway through our paying for Paul Brown Stadium, they'll threaten to leave unless we build them a new, more up-to-date stadium, as seems to be their way.
Add to that the societal ills outlined, I really can't live-and-let-live with football anymore. It seems to be a huge drain on society, lionizes men who are less-than-role models, yet leaves them broken when the league has no sue for them. How can society endorse this?
posted by MrGuilt at 8:34 AM on October 13, 2014 [15 favorites]
Then I had to buy the Cincinnati Bengals a stadium. I witness how the team fails to give back to the community who bought them the palace--we had to get their permission to build a building that would bring jobs to the city, and that required a concession. My fear is that, midway through our paying for Paul Brown Stadium, they'll threaten to leave unless we build them a new, more up-to-date stadium, as seems to be their way.
Add to that the societal ills outlined, I really can't live-and-let-live with football anymore. It seems to be a huge drain on society, lionizes men who are less-than-role models, yet leaves them broken when the league has no sue for them. How can society endorse this?
posted by MrGuilt at 8:34 AM on October 13, 2014 [15 favorites]
Football is a brilliant tactical and strategic sport. People who reduce it to violence and machismo will never get through to a football fan, because that's not the appeal for a lot of us. There is so much going on in every snap of a football game, and so many dynamics going on in every decision, that it's a stunning thing to watch unfold. If you want to criticize football, criticize away, but understand that there are fans who enjoy it on levels other than blood and guts.
The people who play NFL football do often have serious neurological problems. But the truth is, if you watch football today it is dramatically different than it was a generation ago. People for the most part aren't knocking each other's brains out like they did. More players miss time, by a dramatic mark, with knee or ankle injuries than with concussions. Players who have concussions, are taken off the field – often fighting to stay on. You couldn't pay these men enough to take them away from doing what they love doing.
I want a lot of things – machismo, homophobia, ultra-patriotism, domestic violence and rape, head injuries – to go away. I read Dave Zirin's columns and largely agree with his criticisms of aspects of sports, whether it means owners, culture, or injury. But, to put it bluntly, ceding the cultural ground occupied by football to unrepentant reactionaries is bullshit. And that's what "stop watching football" means. Fuck that.
I am a football fan and I want my game to be better.
posted by graymouser at 8:40 AM on October 13, 2014 [30 favorites]
The people who play NFL football do often have serious neurological problems. But the truth is, if you watch football today it is dramatically different than it was a generation ago. People for the most part aren't knocking each other's brains out like they did. More players miss time, by a dramatic mark, with knee or ankle injuries than with concussions. Players who have concussions, are taken off the field – often fighting to stay on. You couldn't pay these men enough to take them away from doing what they love doing.
I want a lot of things – machismo, homophobia, ultra-patriotism, domestic violence and rape, head injuries – to go away. I read Dave Zirin's columns and largely agree with his criticisms of aspects of sports, whether it means owners, culture, or injury. But, to put it bluntly, ceding the cultural ground occupied by football to unrepentant reactionaries is bullshit. And that's what "stop watching football" means. Fuck that.
I am a football fan and I want my game to be better.
posted by graymouser at 8:40 AM on October 13, 2014 [30 favorites]
Football is a brilliant tactical and strategic sport. People who reduce it to violence and machismo will never get through to a football fan, because that's not the appeal for a lot of us.
I once heard someone make this exact same argument in favor of boxing. (“It’s the Sweet Science!”) I asked him why he didn’t watch a sport like fencing, which is very similar from a strategic standpoint, but has none of the violence or injuries. I couldn’t get a straight answer from him.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 8:46 AM on October 13, 2014 [18 favorites]
I once heard someone make this exact same argument in favor of boxing. (“It’s the Sweet Science!”) I asked him why he didn’t watch a sport like fencing, which is very similar from a strategic standpoint, but has none of the violence or injuries. I couldn’t get a straight answer from him.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 8:46 AM on October 13, 2014 [18 favorites]
Especially in response to saulgoodman and charred husk's comments, I've always wondered if cognitive dissonance is a much more subtle, widespread, and deeply-rooted phenomena than it is credited. I haven't read the Chait piece, but I'm sure it's dripping with the stuff, based on what's already been spilled here.
A watershed moment for me occurred over one of this weekend's games, when the camera zoomed in on a player and a woman--clad head-to-toe in the opposing team's gear--in the stands behind him was absolutely fuming with rage at him. I mean an almost inhuman amount of furor where it seems like the people she was in attendance with had to hold her back, and I couldn't help but think "No way are you this upset about a single play in a football game... Are you?" Not to falsely single out American football for having this type of fan, but that must make it a lot easier to ignore all the risks of injury, or to downright cheer on the mutually assured destruction of players if it's within the rules of the game.
I get the ideas of emotional contagion and deindividuation and all, but I have no idea why that particular moment stands out as scary. And implicit in all this is the fact that I still occasionally see a football game, even though I promised myself no more exposure after Junior Seau practically donated his brain to science.
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 8:50 AM on October 13, 2014 [4 favorites]
A watershed moment for me occurred over one of this weekend's games, when the camera zoomed in on a player and a woman--clad head-to-toe in the opposing team's gear--in the stands behind him was absolutely fuming with rage at him. I mean an almost inhuman amount of furor where it seems like the people she was in attendance with had to hold her back, and I couldn't help but think "No way are you this upset about a single play in a football game... Are you?" Not to falsely single out American football for having this type of fan, but that must make it a lot easier to ignore all the risks of injury, or to downright cheer on the mutually assured destruction of players if it's within the rules of the game.
I get the ideas of emotional contagion and deindividuation and all, but I have no idea why that particular moment stands out as scary. And implicit in all this is the fact that I still occasionally see a football game, even though I promised myself no more exposure after Junior Seau practically donated his brain to science.
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 8:50 AM on October 13, 2014 [4 favorites]
I asked him why he didn’t watch a sport like fencing, which is very similar from a strategic standpoint, but has none of the violence or injuries. I couldn’t get a straight answer from him.
There are a ton of reasons. I can talk with my coworkers about football, which is a big part of why I watch it in the first place. (Though to be fair, I could also talk about the English Premier League with some other guys I work with. Not that British soccer is some paragon of sporting virtue.) I can watch the games on TV. There's a local team (the Philadelphia Eagles) that I root for. There's a whole world of sports media that gets updated frequently. And I don't know of a sport that is as complex and doesn't have the issues with head injuries.
posted by graymouser at 8:56 AM on October 13, 2014 [6 favorites]
There are a ton of reasons. I can talk with my coworkers about football, which is a big part of why I watch it in the first place. (Though to be fair, I could also talk about the English Premier League with some other guys I work with. Not that British soccer is some paragon of sporting virtue.) I can watch the games on TV. There's a local team (the Philadelphia Eagles) that I root for. There's a whole world of sports media that gets updated frequently. And I don't know of a sport that is as complex and doesn't have the issues with head injuries.
posted by graymouser at 8:56 AM on October 13, 2014 [6 favorites]
So, the only reasons you watch football are because of how much it's socially supported?
This isn't a dig at you; I'm essentially saying I'm the same way in an earlier comment.
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 9:01 AM on October 13, 2014
This isn't a dig at you; I'm essentially saying I'm the same way in an earlier comment.
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 9:01 AM on October 13, 2014
I don't know of a sport that is as complex
You don't know much about other sports then.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:04 AM on October 13, 2014 [7 favorites]
You don't know much about other sports then.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:04 AM on October 13, 2014 [7 favorites]
Football has the best visuals, and more pomp and pageantry than any other sport, even baseball. I mean, you don't have marching bands for the other sports. It is colorful and gorgeous, visually. It often takes place in the best weather, the crisp days of autumn, and has become a sort of pagan autumn ritual of its own. Those slow-mo movies, with the announcer who sounds like God, talking about legendary games, were the background of my childhood. They bring up all kind of happy sense memories of my dad, and Thanksgiving meals, and family together, and the dark coming on early outside but inside it's warm and cheery.
I used to make the giant signs for our football team in high school, and cheer their dismal playing while shivering on a cold metal bench, and I still love a good marching band.
At the same time, I resent the amount of money and energy that goes into all that pomp and glory at the expense of more needful things. I resent the loss of potential for young men whose brains are slowly being concussed away. I resent how the glorification of sweat and muscle and might always seems to require harm to women and those outside the charmed circle.
Beautiful things can still be harmful and bad for you. That doesn't mean that giving them up means giving up beauty.
posted by emjaybee at 9:04 AM on October 13, 2014 [15 favorites]
I used to make the giant signs for our football team in high school, and cheer their dismal playing while shivering on a cold metal bench, and I still love a good marching band.
At the same time, I resent the amount of money and energy that goes into all that pomp and glory at the expense of more needful things. I resent the loss of potential for young men whose brains are slowly being concussed away. I resent how the glorification of sweat and muscle and might always seems to require harm to women and those outside the charmed circle.
Beautiful things can still be harmful and bad for you. That doesn't mean that giving them up means giving up beauty.
posted by emjaybee at 9:04 AM on October 13, 2014 [15 favorites]
Football is a brilliant tactical and strategic sport. People who reduce it to violence and machismo will never get through to a football fan, because that's not the appeal for a lot of us. There is so much going on in every snap of a football game, and so many dynamics going on in every decision, that it's a stunning thing to watch unfold. If you want to criticize football, criticize away, but understand that there are fans who enjoy it on levels other than blood and guts.
Definitely. US Football is an amazingly complex turn based strategy game that to my mind is much more like a board game or table-top strategy game than it is like most other sports. I'd love to see a version of the game that preserves the strategy but cuts out most or all of the violence.
posted by octothorpe at 9:09 AM on October 13, 2014 [12 favorites]
Definitely. US Football is an amazingly complex turn based strategy game that to my mind is much more like a board game or table-top strategy game than it is like most other sports. I'd love to see a version of the game that preserves the strategy but cuts out most or all of the violence.
posted by octothorpe at 9:09 AM on October 13, 2014 [12 favorites]
I am a football fan, although I increasingly feel morally gross for continuing to watch. If the beauty of football is in the strategy and the "brains" of the sport, then let's make it professional-level, no-tackle, flag football.
People for the most part aren't knocking each other's brains out like they did. More players miss time, by a dramatic mark, with knee or ankle injuries than with concussions. Players who have concussions, are taken off the field – often fighting to stay on. You couldn't pay these men enough to take them away from doing what they love doing.
Concussions are the latest concern, but physical injuries aren't something to wave away as trivial. I watched Victor Cruz tear his patellar tendon this weekend on an ordinary play with absolutely no contact. He was screaming and sobbing in pain. He faces months and months of painful rehab, and it's possible his knee will never be the same again.
If athletes would play football no matter what, let's stop paying them. Let's stop charging for tickets and paying for advertising. Let's make football an amateur sport for people who are aware of the risks and do it for the love of the game only. Let's stop monetizing the destruction of athlete's bodies and minds.
posted by muddgirl at 9:12 AM on October 13, 2014 [8 favorites]
People for the most part aren't knocking each other's brains out like they did. More players miss time, by a dramatic mark, with knee or ankle injuries than with concussions. Players who have concussions, are taken off the field – often fighting to stay on. You couldn't pay these men enough to take them away from doing what they love doing.
Concussions are the latest concern, but physical injuries aren't something to wave away as trivial. I watched Victor Cruz tear his patellar tendon this weekend on an ordinary play with absolutely no contact. He was screaming and sobbing in pain. He faces months and months of painful rehab, and it's possible his knee will never be the same again.
If athletes would play football no matter what, let's stop paying them. Let's stop charging for tickets and paying for advertising. Let's make football an amateur sport for people who are aware of the risks and do it for the love of the game only. Let's stop monetizing the destruction of athlete's bodies and minds.
posted by muddgirl at 9:12 AM on October 13, 2014 [8 favorites]
I guess the argument is that there might be a way to continue playing football that mitigates the head injury risk, and there is certainly a way to play football without silently endorsing rape, domestic violence, and assault. It's manifestly true that there is more to the sport than violence, whether people will still watch it if you completely root out the violence is unknown but it could well be true that we get off on the violence. But football cannot continue its current place in schools and mainstream society without major, rapid changes.
Which is to say, Goodell has to go. If football is going to avoid becoming a Vegas sport, controlled by the mob and hidden from our children, the NFL needs a transformative commissioner. I mean, I get that they are changing the enforcement of rules about helmet hits, but the NFL has an appalling history in how it has dealt with this issue. Players and coaches need to be kicked out of games for a first offense, and banned for second offenses. They need to be sending billions of dollars into medical research on how to make their sport sustainable. They need to air out every instance of criminal violence and need to immediately dissociate themselves from individuals who commit these acts. The NFL sets the tone for college and high school sports. What threatens the existence of American football is not so much that people are injured or we are learning new things about brain injuries or that domestic violence is intolerable; its that the NFL exists at the center of all this and isn't taking a convincing enough leadership role.
I have enjoyed football and still watch a little, but I certainly don't have to keep watching and there's no way my kids are playing.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:12 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
Which is to say, Goodell has to go. If football is going to avoid becoming a Vegas sport, controlled by the mob and hidden from our children, the NFL needs a transformative commissioner. I mean, I get that they are changing the enforcement of rules about helmet hits, but the NFL has an appalling history in how it has dealt with this issue. Players and coaches need to be kicked out of games for a first offense, and banned for second offenses. They need to be sending billions of dollars into medical research on how to make their sport sustainable. They need to air out every instance of criminal violence and need to immediately dissociate themselves from individuals who commit these acts. The NFL sets the tone for college and high school sports. What threatens the existence of American football is not so much that people are injured or we are learning new things about brain injuries or that domestic violence is intolerable; its that the NFL exists at the center of all this and isn't taking a convincing enough leadership role.
I have enjoyed football and still watch a little, but I certainly don't have to keep watching and there's no way my kids are playing.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:12 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
At the same time, I resent the amount of money and energy that goes into all that pomp and glory at the expense of more needful things.
Frankly, I think we're living in a fantasy world.
posted by sneebler at 9:14 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
Frankly, I think we're living in a fantasy world.
posted by sneebler at 9:14 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
octothorpe: "US Football is an amazingly complex turn based strategy game that to my mind is much more like a board game or table-top strategy game than it is like most other sports. I'd love to see a version of the game that preserves the strategy but cuts out most or all of the violence."
Clearly the answer here is to replace football with StarCraft.
posted by Wemmick at 9:17 AM on October 13, 2014 [15 favorites]
Clearly the answer here is to replace football with StarCraft.
posted by Wemmick at 9:17 AM on October 13, 2014 [15 favorites]
If the beauty of football is in the strategy and the "brains" of the sport, then let's make it professional-level, no-tackle, flag football.
seconded. also, i don't care *why* you like football. isn't there a point when the rapes, murders, dead dogs, ripped knee's, hazing, child-rape-cover-ups, cte-suicides, public stadium fiascos, and domestic violence videos outweigh your Sunday afternoon at the coliseum and water-cooler chat?
hs/college/nfl - i know
posted by j_curiouser at 9:18 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
seconded. also, i don't care *why* you like football. isn't there a point when the rapes, murders, dead dogs, ripped knee's, hazing, child-rape-cover-ups, cte-suicides, public stadium fiascos, and domestic violence videos outweigh your Sunday afternoon at the coliseum and water-cooler chat?
hs/college/nfl - i know
posted by j_curiouser at 9:18 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
Yeah. I've been backing slowly away from the NFL too, like all right-thinking people.
(Emphasis mine)
Seriously? I mean, at least you said it while most of the other comments just passive aggressively implied it, so kudos for that, I guess.
I've been a fan of football for most of my life. I grew up in a city that had exactly one professional sports team...a CFL football team, so football was a fairly big part of the city's sense of community. I'm still not as big a big fan of NFL for various reasons but the game itself, at all levels, is legitimately entertaining for those of us who enjoy it and I don't think anyone deserves to be insulted for doing so.
posted by rocket88 at 9:19 AM on October 13, 2014 [13 favorites]
(Emphasis mine)
Seriously? I mean, at least you said it while most of the other comments just passive aggressively implied it, so kudos for that, I guess.
I've been a fan of football for most of my life. I grew up in a city that had exactly one professional sports team...a CFL football team, so football was a fairly big part of the city's sense of community. I'm still not as big a big fan of NFL for various reasons but the game itself, at all levels, is legitimately entertaining for those of us who enjoy it and I don't think anyone deserves to be insulted for doing so.
posted by rocket88 at 9:19 AM on October 13, 2014 [13 favorites]
Adopting the abolishment of football at all levels as part of the progressive agenda is political suicide, such that I half think the meme must have been started by Republican operatives. It's a creeping moral absolutism that has no place in a properly liberal agenda.
One of the fun things about football is that it's a very changeable sport - Teddy Roosevelt encouraged the adoption of the forward pass and the football helmet to reduce fatalities in college and professional leagues. The concussion problem is something that's receiving a lot of attention lately, and will be addressed first with technology changes, and if they prove inadequate, rules changes. If worse comes to worse, they'll just ban tackling, and change the rules to declare the play over if forward movement is sufficiently slowed rather than stopped completely. It keeps the nature of the game, keeps the blocking and defensive plays, it just changes when a play is over.
Tackling isn't the primary draw of the sport, anymore than car wrecks are the primary draw of racing. Some people love it, sure, but people generally love instead the chess-piece matchups and seeing strategy unfold in co-ordinated feats of athletic ability. (One of the reasons soccer will never supplant it - we already have basketball and hockey for back-and-forth sports, Americans equally prefer offense/defense set piece sports. Soccer can't offer that.) No-one remembers a decent tackle, everyone remembers the great run, the amazing pass, the phenomenal interception. Even the stop is better loved for countering the offense's plans and athletics than for its violence.
People will grumble, and complain that it's unmanful that a play ends with a bunch of guys hugging each other, and then go and watch anyway, as the best coaches will be using the new rules to gain an unbelievable advantage over other teams until everyone starts copying them and then all will be right with the game of football.
The rest of it, that it encourages violence or discourages violence or racism or any social ill in particular, is wool-gathering nonsense unsupported by social science. NFL players are less likely than the general population to be involved in domestic abuse (altho they're more likely than other people in their income bracket. This is likely a societal issue (cycle of abuse) related to economic class backgrounds rather than playing football. Few players had parents in the same income bracket.)
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:21 AM on October 13, 2014 [17 favorites]
One of the fun things about football is that it's a very changeable sport - Teddy Roosevelt encouraged the adoption of the forward pass and the football helmet to reduce fatalities in college and professional leagues. The concussion problem is something that's receiving a lot of attention lately, and will be addressed first with technology changes, and if they prove inadequate, rules changes. If worse comes to worse, they'll just ban tackling, and change the rules to declare the play over if forward movement is sufficiently slowed rather than stopped completely. It keeps the nature of the game, keeps the blocking and defensive plays, it just changes when a play is over.
Tackling isn't the primary draw of the sport, anymore than car wrecks are the primary draw of racing. Some people love it, sure, but people generally love instead the chess-piece matchups and seeing strategy unfold in co-ordinated feats of athletic ability. (One of the reasons soccer will never supplant it - we already have basketball and hockey for back-and-forth sports, Americans equally prefer offense/defense set piece sports. Soccer can't offer that.) No-one remembers a decent tackle, everyone remembers the great run, the amazing pass, the phenomenal interception. Even the stop is better loved for countering the offense's plans and athletics than for its violence.
People will grumble, and complain that it's unmanful that a play ends with a bunch of guys hugging each other, and then go and watch anyway, as the best coaches will be using the new rules to gain an unbelievable advantage over other teams until everyone starts copying them and then all will be right with the game of football.
The rest of it, that it encourages violence or discourages violence or racism or any social ill in particular, is wool-gathering nonsense unsupported by social science. NFL players are less likely than the general population to be involved in domestic abuse (altho they're more likely than other people in their income bracket. This is likely a societal issue (cycle of abuse) related to economic class backgrounds rather than playing football. Few players had parents in the same income bracket.)
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:21 AM on October 13, 2014 [17 favorites]
Clearly the answer here is to replace football with StarCraft.
Of course the world of videogames just turned creepy as fuck.
posted by Artw at 9:24 AM on October 13, 2014 [6 favorites]
Of course the world of videogames just turned creepy as fuck.
posted by Artw at 9:24 AM on October 13, 2014 [6 favorites]
NFL players are less likely than the general population to be involved in domestic abuse (altho they're more likely than other people in their income bracket. This is likely a societal issue (cycle of abuse) related to economic class backgrounds rather than playing football. Few players had parents in the same income bracket.)
The fact that we specifically pay poor people to ruin their minds and bodies doesn't make me feel better about the sport.
posted by muddgirl at 9:27 AM on October 13, 2014 [7 favorites]
The fact that we specifically pay poor people to ruin their minds and bodies doesn't make me feel better about the sport.
posted by muddgirl at 9:27 AM on October 13, 2014 [7 favorites]
A couple of weeks ago I was sitting in a Buffalo Wild Wings having a beer on a Sunday afternoon while my wife was shopping nearby. There were about 6 NFL games showing. I couldn't muster up a damn about any of them. That is when it hit me that I really have checked out from NFL fandom.
Also, the kids in high school don't even need concussions to suffer brain damage. A friend was running a research project to measure the damage caused by concussions. The put sensors in the offensive lineman helmets for a local high school team, and tested the kids pre and post season for cognitive ability. Even though none of the kids suffered a concussion during the season, their scores on the test were much lower immediately after the season. The good news is that they all recovered within 6 weeks back to normal. However, the cumulative effect of the damage over years seems to limit the recoverability of the brain as you get older.
posted by COD at 9:27 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
Also, the kids in high school don't even need concussions to suffer brain damage. A friend was running a research project to measure the damage caused by concussions. The put sensors in the offensive lineman helmets for a local high school team, and tested the kids pre and post season for cognitive ability. Even though none of the kids suffered a concussion during the season, their scores on the test were much lower immediately after the season. The good news is that they all recovered within 6 weeks back to normal. However, the cumulative effect of the damage over years seems to limit the recoverability of the brain as you get older.
posted by COD at 9:27 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
NFL players are less likely than the general population to be involved in domestic abuse (altho they're more likely than other people in their income bracket. This is likely a societal issue (cycle of abuse) related to economic class backgrounds rather than playing football. Few players had parents in the same income bracket.)
This, of course, is bullshit. The NFL has a small secret service style army of former cops and FBI who use their clout to 'keep players out of trouble' . Sure part of that is informally policing player behaviour but I am betting an even larger part is covering up the trouble that they do get into. There is a reason they are ex-cops and ex-FBI and isn't because they have 'crime prevention skills' so much as contacts and LEO respect that gives them 'criminal charge prevention skills'.
You give 'ordinary' people that level of prevention and protection and there would be no crime in the world at all.
posted by srboisvert at 9:33 AM on October 13, 2014 [9 favorites]
This, of course, is bullshit. The NFL has a small secret service style army of former cops and FBI who use their clout to 'keep players out of trouble' . Sure part of that is informally policing player behaviour but I am betting an even larger part is covering up the trouble that they do get into. There is a reason they are ex-cops and ex-FBI and isn't because they have 'crime prevention skills' so much as contacts and LEO respect that gives them 'criminal charge prevention skills'.
You give 'ordinary' people that level of prevention and protection and there would be no crime in the world at all.
posted by srboisvert at 9:33 AM on October 13, 2014 [9 favorites]
There is a growing cottage industry of "in defense of football" types which is why, though I think that I am largely opposed to a lot of the issues associated with football, I think it is more productive to focus on those issues rather than declaring football = bad. I don't expect that the sport will be around in the same form for my grandchildren but I'm still at a point where I have a hard time getting on board with the football = bad perspective, because football is a sport. I don't see anything inherently wrong or immoral about track or basketball (though frequently people make compelling comparisons to boxing). Football culture can be a force for good. It seems like it's often a force for bad but is that because we're more likely to remember bad things or because it is objectively bad?
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm with the research on concussions but I'm not opposed to football yet, and if I'm not there yet, a lot of people aren't there yet. It's a good idea to start laying the groundwork for an organized opposition to football but I need more time to stop watching for good.
posted by kat518 at 9:37 AM on October 13, 2014
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm with the research on concussions but I'm not opposed to football yet, and if I'm not there yet, a lot of people aren't there yet. It's a good idea to start laying the groundwork for an organized opposition to football but I need more time to stop watching for good.
posted by kat518 at 9:37 AM on October 13, 2014
The NFL has a small secret service style army of former cops and FBI who use their clout to 'keep players out of trouble' .
No, it really doesn't. This is fantasy and conspiracy theory.
The fact that we specifically pay poor people to ruin their minds and bodies doesn't make me feel better about the sport.
This is true of pretty much every professional sport that isn't tennis, auto racing or golf.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:38 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
No, it really doesn't. This is fantasy and conspiracy theory.
The fact that we specifically pay poor people to ruin their minds and bodies doesn't make me feel better about the sport.
This is true of pretty much every professional sport that isn't tennis, auto racing or golf.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:38 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
I don't think anyone deserves to be insulted for doing so.
What I like about Steve Almond's polemic here is that he blames the fans way more than any other group for the nature of football. Well maybe Sports Journalists a little bit more. And the owners are certainly not blameless as well. But, as a fan, he is most able to pinpoint the problem as a cultural one. We created football in the image we wanted -- the same way that the Roman people wanted to see Christians torn up every Sunday in the circuses... (sorry for the lazy analogy but I'm sure a smarter person can think of another ancient blood sport that's less of a cliche).
To paraphrase him: Football is at heart a toxin, excreted by our culture into the poor and strong. It chews up players, drugs the fans, and enriches a few monstrous owners. All the moral lessons it teaches are reactionary lies. Every play, like a cigarette, hurts a participant irrevocably. If you watch it, if you support it, as a psychologist once told Carmela Soprano, "One thing you can never say: You haven't been told."
"Take only the children--what's left of them--and go."
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:38 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
What I like about Steve Almond's polemic here is that he blames the fans way more than any other group for the nature of football. Well maybe Sports Journalists a little bit more. And the owners are certainly not blameless as well. But, as a fan, he is most able to pinpoint the problem as a cultural one. We created football in the image we wanted -- the same way that the Roman people wanted to see Christians torn up every Sunday in the circuses... (sorry for the lazy analogy but I'm sure a smarter person can think of another ancient blood sport that's less of a cliche).
To paraphrase him: Football is at heart a toxin, excreted by our culture into the poor and strong. It chews up players, drugs the fans, and enriches a few monstrous owners. All the moral lessons it teaches are reactionary lies. Every play, like a cigarette, hurts a participant irrevocably. If you watch it, if you support it, as a psychologist once told Carmela Soprano, "One thing you can never say: You haven't been told."
"Take only the children--what's left of them--and go."
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:38 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
octothorpe: "US Football is an amazingly complex turn based strategy game that to my mind is much more like a board game or table-top strategy game than it is like most other sports. I'd love to see a version of the game that preserves the strategy but cuts out most or all of the violence."
Clearly the answer here is to replace football with StarCraft.
If people don't go for that, we could try replacing football with Madden instead...
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:40 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
Clearly the answer here is to replace football with StarCraft.
If people don't go for that, we could try replacing football with Madden instead...
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:40 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
I don't think these issues can or should be looked at as political issues. That would only cause everybody to dig more deeply into their preexisting positions. If there's an issue here, it's a non-partisan public health issue. Talking to each other and trying to influence each other when we're defining and shaping our own culture shouldn't have to subsumed into the party-political model and turned into a team sport. We can tolerate a multitude of different opinions, and if a consensus starts to form on its own, then we don't have to assume its got anything to do with partisan politics or try to force the issue into the prevailing mold of combative politics.
I don't see any of this as being necessarily about politics so much as culture, NFL corporate politics notwithstanding. Why do we have to look at every issue through the same political framing mechanisms? If people want to keep watching football they can and should. If they don't, they shouldn't feel ashamed for making what should be an incredibly trivial personal life decision.
posted by saulgoodman at 9:41 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
I don't see any of this as being necessarily about politics so much as culture, NFL corporate politics notwithstanding. Why do we have to look at every issue through the same political framing mechanisms? If people want to keep watching football they can and should. If they don't, they shouldn't feel ashamed for making what should be an incredibly trivial personal life decision.
posted by saulgoodman at 9:41 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
No, it really doesn't. This is fantasy and conspiracy theory.
Report: Off-duty San Jose cop was at Ray McDonald birthday party
posted by drezdn at 9:41 AM on October 13, 2014 [4 favorites]
Report: Off-duty San Jose cop was at Ray McDonald birthday party
posted by drezdn at 9:41 AM on October 13, 2014 [4 favorites]
In my post I like to 538s recent article about Domestic Violence rates and the NFL. Their conclusion is that its way out of proportion in every way.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:41 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:41 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
Documents: Police, FSU hampered Jameis Winston investigation.
This is what happens when you accuse a Notre Dame football player of sexually assaulting you.
posted by drezdn at 9:44 AM on October 13, 2014 [4 favorites]
This is what happens when you accuse a Notre Dame football player of sexually assaulting you.
posted by drezdn at 9:44 AM on October 13, 2014 [4 favorites]
This is true of pretty much every professional sport that isn't tennis, auto racing or golf.
Sure, I never said it wasn't, but this post is about the NFL specifically, and since I'm not really a fan nor a regular consumer of NBA or MLB teams, I don't have the same sense of moral urgency in those cases. NBA or MLB fans who are conflicted about the abuses in their particular sport are more than welcome to speak up, I think.
posted by muddgirl at 9:45 AM on October 13, 2014
Sure, I never said it wasn't, but this post is about the NFL specifically, and since I'm not really a fan nor a regular consumer of NBA or MLB teams, I don't have the same sense of moral urgency in those cases. NBA or MLB fans who are conflicted about the abuses in their particular sport are more than welcome to speak up, I think.
posted by muddgirl at 9:45 AM on October 13, 2014
(Sorry, my last comment was in response to this comment upthread.)
posted by saulgoodman at 9:45 AM on October 13, 2014
posted by saulgoodman at 9:45 AM on October 13, 2014
I guess, given my username, I should weigh in on this......
Look, there are many, many things I hate about football. I hate the financing aspect of it: that taxpayers basically subsidize the NFL through a minor league system in the form of high schools, universities, and publicly funded stadiums, especially considering people are sometimes more willing to fund athletics than aspects of schools devoted to academics. I hate the culture that sometimes accompanies it: the bullying, homophobia, domestic violence, and thinly veiled racism in how players are coached into certain positions. Finally, I hate the health risks that its players are exposed to.
All that being said, I am still a fan, and I am not going to feel bad about it. Not all football players are violent homophobic criminals. Certainly, even if consideration is just restricted to the entertainment professions, violence, homophobia, and sexism are not restricted to football players - hello Roman Polansky and Chris Brown. As a a matter of fact, you might say that these problems are present in all aspects of society. Singling out football is just a convenient way to remove our own moral culpability in these matters.
I do think we need to address some of the culture surrounding football. I think our entire society needs to reconsider its priorities concerning how resources are allocated. I think changes will be made in the rules of the game and in rules governing how players are coached at all levels to minimize the risk of head injury. The initial impetus to create football in its current form was to increase safety, so it wouldn't be the first time the sport was drastically modified for those reasons. Exactly what form these changes will take, I do not know. First, we need a better understanding of exactly what risks within the game lead to chronically debilitating effects; not all players develop neurological issues, and we need to understand why some do and others don't.
So, yeah, if watching football makes me a bad person in the eyes of Metafilter, then I guess I'm a bad person. I guess I'll just add it to the list .......
posted by eagles123 at 9:46 AM on October 13, 2014 [7 favorites]
Look, there are many, many things I hate about football. I hate the financing aspect of it: that taxpayers basically subsidize the NFL through a minor league system in the form of high schools, universities, and publicly funded stadiums, especially considering people are sometimes more willing to fund athletics than aspects of schools devoted to academics. I hate the culture that sometimes accompanies it: the bullying, homophobia, domestic violence, and thinly veiled racism in how players are coached into certain positions. Finally, I hate the health risks that its players are exposed to.
All that being said, I am still a fan, and I am not going to feel bad about it. Not all football players are violent homophobic criminals. Certainly, even if consideration is just restricted to the entertainment professions, violence, homophobia, and sexism are not restricted to football players - hello Roman Polansky and Chris Brown. As a a matter of fact, you might say that these problems are present in all aspects of society. Singling out football is just a convenient way to remove our own moral culpability in these matters.
I do think we need to address some of the culture surrounding football. I think our entire society needs to reconsider its priorities concerning how resources are allocated. I think changes will be made in the rules of the game and in rules governing how players are coached at all levels to minimize the risk of head injury. The initial impetus to create football in its current form was to increase safety, so it wouldn't be the first time the sport was drastically modified for those reasons. Exactly what form these changes will take, I do not know. First, we need a better understanding of exactly what risks within the game lead to chronically debilitating effects; not all players develop neurological issues, and we need to understand why some do and others don't.
So, yeah, if watching football makes me a bad person in the eyes of Metafilter, then I guess I'm a bad person. I guess I'll just add it to the list .......
posted by eagles123 at 9:46 AM on October 13, 2014 [7 favorites]
1970s Antihero: " I asked him why he didn’t watch a sport like fencing, which is very similar from a strategic standpoint, but has none of the violence or injuries. I couldn’t get a straight answer from him."
Probably he doesn't appreciate the subtle strategy in fencing, not being as familiar with it. Like, I get that soccer's a great sport, but to me it's mostly just guys running up and down a field most of the time because I don't know very much about the strategy of the game and I haven't watched a whole lot of it. Football, on the other hand, I can see and understand the tactical battle going on, the attempts and failures, the beauty of a particular play, because I've been watching it my whole life and I have, at times (i.e., college), been a quite fanatical fan. (Mostly I am a very casual fan.)
These days I'm just a casual general sports fan and I'm unlikely to invest the time and energy in "learning" a new sport. (I never really invested that time and energy on purpose; it came from being around others who loved various sports and it happening almost involuntarily.)
A lot of the enjoyment has gone out of football for me; I guess it's some combination of the off-field woes of the athletes and the knowledge of the concussions and dislike for Goodell, but I used to really look forward to spending Sundays curled up on the couch, watching football and surfing the internet, and now I mostly waver between not caring about and actively disliking watching the game. I don't know. I'd like football to be better so I can watch it and enjoy it again, but probably I'll just keep fading away as a fan and caring less and less, and be a little bit sad but not real broken-up about it.
(I've had to stop watching college sports almost entirely, because I find it upsetting that full-grown adults are screaming at 20-year-old kids for missing a pass or a free throw, but separate issue.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:49 AM on October 13, 2014 [5 favorites]
Probably he doesn't appreciate the subtle strategy in fencing, not being as familiar with it. Like, I get that soccer's a great sport, but to me it's mostly just guys running up and down a field most of the time because I don't know very much about the strategy of the game and I haven't watched a whole lot of it. Football, on the other hand, I can see and understand the tactical battle going on, the attempts and failures, the beauty of a particular play, because I've been watching it my whole life and I have, at times (i.e., college), been a quite fanatical fan. (Mostly I am a very casual fan.)
These days I'm just a casual general sports fan and I'm unlikely to invest the time and energy in "learning" a new sport. (I never really invested that time and energy on purpose; it came from being around others who loved various sports and it happening almost involuntarily.)
A lot of the enjoyment has gone out of football for me; I guess it's some combination of the off-field woes of the athletes and the knowledge of the concussions and dislike for Goodell, but I used to really look forward to spending Sundays curled up on the couch, watching football and surfing the internet, and now I mostly waver between not caring about and actively disliking watching the game. I don't know. I'd like football to be better so I can watch it and enjoy it again, but probably I'll just keep fading away as a fan and caring less and less, and be a little bit sad but not real broken-up about it.
(I've had to stop watching college sports almost entirely, because I find it upsetting that full-grown adults are screaming at 20-year-old kids for missing a pass or a free throw, but separate issue.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:49 AM on October 13, 2014 [5 favorites]
I don't think it's fair to strawman the "anti-NFL" argument as anyone calling fans bad people. Almond's argument is that fans specifically like me, who are uncomfortable or even outraged, need to stop watching games (AKA giving money) to the NFL, because that is all the NFL cares about and it is the only way to effect change. He's making an economic case.
posted by muddgirl at 9:50 AM on October 13, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by muddgirl at 9:50 AM on October 13, 2014 [4 favorites]
Their conclusion is that its way out of proportion in every way.
That's not the conclusion. They even have graphs. It's that crime overall is way under-average, including domestic assault, which is under-average except for within their income bracket. It's more common than other crimes committed by NFL players, which is cause for concern and a good reason for the league to review and stiffen its penalties for off-the-field misbehavior, especially domestic assault, but not an indictment of the sport or its players.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:54 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
That's not the conclusion. They even have graphs. It's that crime overall is way under-average, including domestic assault, which is under-average except for within their income bracket. It's more common than other crimes committed by NFL players, which is cause for concern and a good reason for the league to review and stiffen its penalties for off-the-field misbehavior, especially domestic assault, but not an indictment of the sport or its players.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:54 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
I don't think anyone, including any author I linked to, is saying watching football makes you a bad person. This is all coming from the perspective of people that grew up watching and loving football. Shit I'm a R*****s fan who can't even say the name of my favorite team. Like that team, football is too flawed for people to enjoy without hearing negative things about it constantly.
It doesn't make me a bad person to eat at McDonalds (which I do, often, lol), but it does make me morally culpable in factory farming. This is like that.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:54 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
It doesn't make me a bad person to eat at McDonalds (which I do, often, lol), but it does make me morally culpable in factory farming. This is like that.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:54 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
SlapHappy: You are misreading that. More on 538 about NFL Domestic Violence rates:
the article has been cited by a number of people to support the proposition that the NFL does not have an unusually high domestic violence rate. While I think this is a fair characterization of my intermediate results — the arrest rate I noted was 55.4 percent of the national average for 25- to 29-year-old men as suggested by the USA Today arrest data and rough number of players in the NFL — it’s misleading when taken out of context.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:58 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
the article has been cited by a number of people to support the proposition that the NFL does not have an unusually high domestic violence rate. While I think this is a fair characterization of my intermediate results — the arrest rate I noted was 55.4 percent of the national average for 25- to 29-year-old men as suggested by the USA Today arrest data and rough number of players in the NFL — it’s misleading when taken out of context.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:58 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
muddgirl: That's kinda where I am. I'm not involved in any part of the culture that would have any influence on football - heck even the school my wife teaches at only has a Quidditch team. My only contribution to football as a whole is through my money and its the only way to register my displeasure that might be noted (if enough other people join in).
(Or I guess I could write a letter.)
posted by charred husk at 9:58 AM on October 13, 2014
(Or I guess I could write a letter.)
posted by charred husk at 9:58 AM on October 13, 2014
Almond's argument is that fans specifically like me, who are uncomfortable or even outraged, need to stop watching games (AKA giving money) to the NFL, because that is all the NFL cares about and it is the only way to effect change.
Okay, just a hypothetical - what if you have to illegally stream football games online because you're way too cheap for NFL Sunday Ticket and your team's games are never broadcast in your city? The league isn't profiting in that case so ...
(Asking for a friend)
posted by kat518 at 9:59 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
Okay, just a hypothetical - what if you have to illegally stream football games online because you're way too cheap for NFL Sunday Ticket and your team's games are never broadcast in your city? The league isn't profiting in that case so ...
(Asking for a friend)
posted by kat518 at 9:59 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
That was kind of my point, @rocket88. Chait is calling out those who combine some totally-legitimate criticisms of the NFL with a sense that it all seems a just a little too lumpen for polite society. And I agree with him--both that lots of people are doing that, and that it's classist and problematic.
posted by hal incandenza at 9:59 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by hal incandenza at 9:59 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
I was never a fan of football, so I can get that out of the way first. I think it's easier for someone like me to say "Stop watching football" because I am not giving anything up. Two recent incidents have made me have more sympathy for the football fan who doesn't want to give up the game. You see, I am one of the five lifelong NBA fans in the US (Bill Simmons joke). I have always loved the NBA even though I grew up in a huge college basketball town.
I now live in an NBA town with a cool team. Then that cool team went out and got a free agent, Lance Stephenson, who has an incident in his past every bit as grotesque as Ray Rice's horrorshow. Lance is already being treated as a star, in part because his incident was years ago, so no one cares anymore.
Then one of the bench players I liked, Jeffery Taylor, was arrested in Michigan on domestic violence charges. The team has promptly suspended him and will clearly hang him out to dry.
So, I am faced with a few problems as a Hornets fan - how hypocritical is it to embrace Lance while scapegoating Taylor when they both committed similar incidents? How likely is it (and this is I think an issue at the root of football's problem, too) that Taylor's incident was inflamed by steroid use? It doesn't take a crack detective to observe that Taylor was coming back quite quickly from an Achilles tear before this incident happened. Perhaps much of the off-field violence in the NFL is due to a rampant culture of steroid use.
And that supposition goes to the heart of why I don't believe the NFL apologists, including some people commenting in this thread. When NFL defenders claim the game isn't about violence, then why do teams look the other way on steroid abuse, which is all about making players faster and stronger and therefore better able to hit? Why not eliminate tackling, like rugby? Why does the NFL market video compilations called "The NFL's Greatest Hits" which are composed of various crazy tackles? Why does the NFL take great pains to associate itself at every turn with soldiers and war? To say that the NFL is not predicated on the selling of violence is incredibly disingenuous. Sure an individual fan may enjoy the game for something other than violence, but the NFL is obviously quite aware that if they change things very much at all to make the game safer, fans will leave in droves for MMA or some other similarly violent game.
posted by Slothrop at 10:03 AM on October 13, 2014 [8 favorites]
I now live in an NBA town with a cool team. Then that cool team went out and got a free agent, Lance Stephenson, who has an incident in his past every bit as grotesque as Ray Rice's horrorshow. Lance is already being treated as a star, in part because his incident was years ago, so no one cares anymore.
Then one of the bench players I liked, Jeffery Taylor, was arrested in Michigan on domestic violence charges. The team has promptly suspended him and will clearly hang him out to dry.
So, I am faced with a few problems as a Hornets fan - how hypocritical is it to embrace Lance while scapegoating Taylor when they both committed similar incidents? How likely is it (and this is I think an issue at the root of football's problem, too) that Taylor's incident was inflamed by steroid use? It doesn't take a crack detective to observe that Taylor was coming back quite quickly from an Achilles tear before this incident happened. Perhaps much of the off-field violence in the NFL is due to a rampant culture of steroid use.
And that supposition goes to the heart of why I don't believe the NFL apologists, including some people commenting in this thread. When NFL defenders claim the game isn't about violence, then why do teams look the other way on steroid abuse, which is all about making players faster and stronger and therefore better able to hit? Why not eliminate tackling, like rugby? Why does the NFL market video compilations called "The NFL's Greatest Hits" which are composed of various crazy tackles? Why does the NFL take great pains to associate itself at every turn with soldiers and war? To say that the NFL is not predicated on the selling of violence is incredibly disingenuous. Sure an individual fan may enjoy the game for something other than violence, but the NFL is obviously quite aware that if they change things very much at all to make the game safer, fans will leave in droves for MMA or some other similarly violent game.
posted by Slothrop at 10:03 AM on October 13, 2014 [8 favorites]
So I read the whole Chait article a couple days ago now, and remember some of the bits quoted above. The bit I don't get or remember is why is this by his reckoning a liberal issue? What, conservatives don't give a crap about the brains of their favorite players?
Why the hell must everything be a left-vs-right tribal issue? There wasn't a single Republican who picked Junior Seau for fantasy football? I think Chait's argument does a disservice to conservatives more than it does to the straw-man liberals he's hanging this on.
posted by newdaddy at 10:05 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
Why the hell must everything be a left-vs-right tribal issue? There wasn't a single Republican who picked Junior Seau for fantasy football? I think Chait's argument does a disservice to conservatives more than it does to the straw-man liberals he's hanging this on.
posted by newdaddy at 10:05 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
So there's two issues that I think are being conflated in this thread:
The first is the risk factors of how football is played: concussions mainly, but also other injuries. This is the main problem, and it's specific to football. It may or may not be addressable through rule changes.
Second is the broader picture: violence by players off the field, racism, homophobia, sexism, coverups and taxpayer subsidies for private businesses. Football may be a prime example of these problems, but this is hardly limited to football. It's a problem of sports culture in the United States. We need to stop valorizing players, stop protecting and excusing them, stop valuing sports over academics at the high school and college levels. I don't really think that's going to happen without completely tearing down the entire system of sports in this country and starting over again. It's too ingrained. Singling out football with regard to this issue doesn't get us very far.
(I know very little about football and have never watched a game, so grain of salt.)
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:08 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
The first is the risk factors of how football is played: concussions mainly, but also other injuries. This is the main problem, and it's specific to football. It may or may not be addressable through rule changes.
Second is the broader picture: violence by players off the field, racism, homophobia, sexism, coverups and taxpayer subsidies for private businesses. Football may be a prime example of these problems, but this is hardly limited to football. It's a problem of sports culture in the United States. We need to stop valorizing players, stop protecting and excusing them, stop valuing sports over academics at the high school and college levels. I don't really think that's going to happen without completely tearing down the entire system of sports in this country and starting over again. It's too ingrained. Singling out football with regard to this issue doesn't get us very far.
(I know very little about football and have never watched a game, so grain of salt.)
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:08 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
Is this just another class-inflected moral panic, a la "crack babies," or is the sport really irredeemable?
I'd say there's a world between those two poles... but they don't even seem to be on opposite ends of the same spectrum. The argument against professional football, as it's played today, has nothing to do with class, the rich and the poor alike enthuse endlessly about the game. If anything, it connects the classes. And the sport certainly isn't irredeemable, it could be fixed, rules could be put into place to curb unnecessary violence. But before that can happen, the NFL has to admit there's a problem, and there's too much money in bonecrushing spectacle, and too many fans desperate to preserve the game as it is, for them to pay anything more than lipservice to that.
The people who play NFL football do often have serious neurological problems. But the truth is, if you watch football today it is dramatically different than it was a generation ago.
It is, definitely. But that fact means nothing if it's still really bad.
Players who have concussions, are taken off the field – often fighting to stay on. You couldn't pay these men enough to take them away from doing what they love doing.
People love meth too. Which, ya know, war-on-drugs-is-bad yes, but meth addicts aren't at least paid to wreck their lives.
But, to put it bluntly, ceding the cultural ground occupied by football to unrepentant reactionaries is bullshit. And that's what "stop watching football" means. Fuck that.
I am a football fan and I want my game to be better.
It's not going to get better, probably, unless the NFL's finances are threatened by their refusal to make it better. People boycotting the game for a while is likely the least harsh way to go about that. Other avenues include legislation and lawsuits. A boycott by people who love the game would show the NFL that the people who care, care that much.
Adopting the abolishment of football at all levels as part of the progressive agenda is political suicide, such that I half think the meme must have been started by Republican operatives. It's a creeping moral absolutism that has no place in a properly liberal agenda.
Oy! No one's arguing to abolish football, but instead to fix it.
The bit I don't get or remember is why is this by his reckoning a liberal issue? What, conservatives don't give a crap about the brains of their favorite players?
Because if you call your opponents liberals you'll immediately earn one Crazification Factor's worth of allies for your side. It's a form of Godwinning.
posted by JHarris at 10:12 AM on October 13, 2014 [9 favorites]
I'd say there's a world between those two poles... but they don't even seem to be on opposite ends of the same spectrum. The argument against professional football, as it's played today, has nothing to do with class, the rich and the poor alike enthuse endlessly about the game. If anything, it connects the classes. And the sport certainly isn't irredeemable, it could be fixed, rules could be put into place to curb unnecessary violence. But before that can happen, the NFL has to admit there's a problem, and there's too much money in bonecrushing spectacle, and too many fans desperate to preserve the game as it is, for them to pay anything more than lipservice to that.
The people who play NFL football do often have serious neurological problems. But the truth is, if you watch football today it is dramatically different than it was a generation ago.
It is, definitely. But that fact means nothing if it's still really bad.
Players who have concussions, are taken off the field – often fighting to stay on. You couldn't pay these men enough to take them away from doing what they love doing.
People love meth too. Which, ya know, war-on-drugs-is-bad yes, but meth addicts aren't at least paid to wreck their lives.
But, to put it bluntly, ceding the cultural ground occupied by football to unrepentant reactionaries is bullshit. And that's what "stop watching football" means. Fuck that.
I am a football fan and I want my game to be better.
It's not going to get better, probably, unless the NFL's finances are threatened by their refusal to make it better. People boycotting the game for a while is likely the least harsh way to go about that. Other avenues include legislation and lawsuits. A boycott by people who love the game would show the NFL that the people who care, care that much.
Adopting the abolishment of football at all levels as part of the progressive agenda is political suicide, such that I half think the meme must have been started by Republican operatives. It's a creeping moral absolutism that has no place in a properly liberal agenda.
Oy! No one's arguing to abolish football, but instead to fix it.
The bit I don't get or remember is why is this by his reckoning a liberal issue? What, conservatives don't give a crap about the brains of their favorite players?
Because if you call your opponents liberals you'll immediately earn one Crazification Factor's worth of allies for your side. It's a form of Godwinning.
posted by JHarris at 10:12 AM on October 13, 2014 [9 favorites]
Yeah, hanging anti-football sentiment on "liberals" smacks of the same brazenly opportunist hogwash as, say, Delingpole et al getting involved with gamergate did.
posted by ominous_paws at 10:13 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by ominous_paws at 10:13 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
I think there are legitimate criticisms of football, the culture that sometimes accompanies it, and the place it holds in our society. I think painting fans as unthinking hoards who attended games to watch players kill each other is the wrong way to go about this; because it is not true. The game is not "just about violence". If that is all someone sees, then that is all they want to see.
To me, Hockey looks like a bunch of drunken rednecks on skates who occasionally engage in fights that are apparently sanctioned by some sort of unofficial "code". I'm not saying that is all that Hockey is; I'm saying that is what it looks like to me because I am someone who does not know much about the sport (okay, I don't actually have that impression of Hockey - but someone easily could!). Similarly, to pick a less violent sport (and could someone explain to me why we aren't having this moral panic over Hockey considering it has similar issues with violence and head injuries - hell fighting is part of the game), soccer is just fucking boring to me as someone who knows nothing about it. From what I can tell, it looks like fans pass the time by fighting and chanting racial slurs at each other and the players on the field. I know that isn't true, but someone might think that if they don't know much about it.
posted by eagles123 at 10:14 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
To me, Hockey looks like a bunch of drunken rednecks on skates who occasionally engage in fights that are apparently sanctioned by some sort of unofficial "code". I'm not saying that is all that Hockey is; I'm saying that is what it looks like to me because I am someone who does not know much about the sport (okay, I don't actually have that impression of Hockey - but someone easily could!). Similarly, to pick a less violent sport (and could someone explain to me why we aren't having this moral panic over Hockey considering it has similar issues with violence and head injuries - hell fighting is part of the game), soccer is just fucking boring to me as someone who knows nothing about it. From what I can tell, it looks like fans pass the time by fighting and chanting racial slurs at each other and the players on the field. I know that isn't true, but someone might think that if they don't know much about it.
posted by eagles123 at 10:14 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
I think the story is about football and not hockey simply because football is a much bigger deal in the US. If hockey was as popular as football, there'd be a lot more critical eyes on that sport too right now. Moral panics about boxing don't get very far either anymore, it's just not a big enough deal to get too many people to care about it one way or the other.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:21 AM on October 13, 2014
posted by vibratory manner of working at 10:21 AM on October 13, 2014
Last night may have been the tipping point for American football.
I don't mean Victor Cruz's injury -- that sort of thing happens. I mean that you can smash guys' brains in on the field, you can pelt people in the stands wearing the wrong colors, you can get roaring drunk before, during and after a football game, but stealing a man's leg is crossing a goddamned Rubicon.
posted by delfin at 10:21 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
I don't mean Victor Cruz's injury -- that sort of thing happens. I mean that you can smash guys' brains in on the field, you can pelt people in the stands wearing the wrong colors, you can get roaring drunk before, during and after a football game, but stealing a man's leg is crossing a goddamned Rubicon.
posted by delfin at 10:21 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
eagles123:
posted by charred husk at 10:22 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
The game is not "just about violence". If that is all someone sees, then that is all they want to see.Thing is, we football fans here on MetaFilter may be fine with the non-violent aspects of football alone. But as is often the case, we're not the problem. There ARE fans, lots and lots of them, who revel in the violence. They may appreciate the strategy, too, but if too major of changes would be made they'd flip their lids. Hell, just look at the Washington DC's teamname and the uproar about changing it. No one here is likely to defend it, but there are certainly enough people out there to who do.
posted by charred husk at 10:22 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
If the beauty of football is in the strategy and the "brains" of the sport, then let's make it professional-level, no-tackle, flag football.
I've been saying for years that this is what they should do with the Pro Bowl (which is halfway there anyhow.) I don't think it'd fly in the regular game, since violence is the big appeal (see anything by NFL Films.)
Taking away their armor (hats and pads) would probably do more, since they wouldn't have them to rely on.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:23 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
I've been saying for years that this is what they should do with the Pro Bowl (which is halfway there anyhow.) I don't think it'd fly in the regular game, since violence is the big appeal (see anything by NFL Films.)
Taking away their armor (hats and pads) would probably do more, since they wouldn't have them to rely on.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:23 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
My boys both box and my oldest plays midget-league football and wants to play for the Buckeyes when he grows up. My girl is eager to do both when she's old enough. Apparently I'm enabling a new generation of rapist, homophobic wife beaters...
posted by holybagel at 10:26 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by holybagel at 10:26 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
Nobody has any idea how many fans "revel in the violence". Did you take a survey? Last time I checked, the object of the game was to score points and prevent the other team from scoring points.
Also, boxing is still a huge deal globally and among many segments of the American population. It might not be a big deal in "polite" society, but then again, it never really was.
posted by eagles123 at 10:31 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
Also, boxing is still a huge deal globally and among many segments of the American population. It might not be a big deal in "polite" society, but then again, it never really was.
posted by eagles123 at 10:31 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
You are misreading that.
I'm not tho - he's arguing that the arrest rates for domestic violence should be comparable to the offense rates for other crimes. It won't be tho, these are professional athletes who are drug-tested. Their arrests for drug possession and property crime will be through the floor - by necessity there will not be the same population of chronic substance abusers, they won't be running scams or pulling heists, so these categories of crime are very, very low.
"For example, if you compare NFL players only to the national average for 25- to 29-year-old men, and you assume that the USA Today database is pretty much complete, you arrive at the 55.4 percent figure.
On the other hand, if you assume that the NFL’s domestic violence arrest rate should be proportional to the overall arrest rate, you can see that the NFL has a “domestic violence problem,” whether the USA Today data is complete or not."
It's a bad assumption.
On the other hand, anything greater than "zero" is too much, so Peterson and Rice need to find something else to do for a living until they've served their jail time - and they can't be let back into the league unless they do the time and/or find another way to redeem themselves and earn another shot. (See: Michael Vick.)
posted by Slap*Happy at 10:31 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
I'm not tho - he's arguing that the arrest rates for domestic violence should be comparable to the offense rates for other crimes. It won't be tho, these are professional athletes who are drug-tested. Their arrests for drug possession and property crime will be through the floor - by necessity there will not be the same population of chronic substance abusers, they won't be running scams or pulling heists, so these categories of crime are very, very low.
"For example, if you compare NFL players only to the national average for 25- to 29-year-old men, and you assume that the USA Today database is pretty much complete, you arrive at the 55.4 percent figure.
On the other hand, if you assume that the NFL’s domestic violence arrest rate should be proportional to the overall arrest rate, you can see that the NFL has a “domestic violence problem,” whether the USA Today data is complete or not."
It's a bad assumption.
On the other hand, anything greater than "zero" is too much, so Peterson and Rice need to find something else to do for a living until they've served their jail time - and they can't be let back into the league unless they do the time and/or find another way to redeem themselves and earn another shot. (See: Michael Vick.)
posted by Slap*Happy at 10:31 AM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
What I saw as an NFL ball boy - NYTimes.
posted by newdaddy at 10:39 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by newdaddy at 10:39 AM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
My boys both box and my oldest plays midget-league football and wants to play for the Buckeyes when he grows up. My girl is eager to do both when she's old enough. Apparently I'm enabling a new generation of rapist, homophobic wife beaters...
I'm not sure what you mean us to conclude from this. Are we to assume that since you're here, you're obviously fine and everything you do is fine, and from that, we can extrapolate that boxing and football as industries are completely fine? That's...not logical.
Are you just wanting us to tell you "oh no no, we don't mean YOU, or YOUR children, obviously YOUR children aren't wife-beaters or rapists." Well, sure, they're not. They're goddamn kids.
It's entirely possible that you are, in fact, enabling a new generation of rapists, homophobes, and wife-beaters. You're supporting an industry that is problematically friendly to all three and, based on your defensive posture, probably not doing anything at all to make it LESS friendly to them. So yeah, you probably are enabling.
The question is, what are you gonna do about it?
posted by like_a_friend at 11:19 AM on October 13, 2014 [4 favorites]
I'm not sure what you mean us to conclude from this. Are we to assume that since you're here, you're obviously fine and everything you do is fine, and from that, we can extrapolate that boxing and football as industries are completely fine? That's...not logical.
Are you just wanting us to tell you "oh no no, we don't mean YOU, or YOUR children, obviously YOUR children aren't wife-beaters or rapists." Well, sure, they're not. They're goddamn kids.
It's entirely possible that you are, in fact, enabling a new generation of rapists, homophobes, and wife-beaters. You're supporting an industry that is problematically friendly to all three and, based on your defensive posture, probably not doing anything at all to make it LESS friendly to them. So yeah, you probably are enabling.
The question is, what are you gonna do about it?
posted by like_a_friend at 11:19 AM on October 13, 2014 [4 favorites]
pay poor people to ruin their minds and bodies
They're being paid at a minimum something like $300,000 per year. I think that's well past the point where they qualify as 'poor'.
posted by Hatashran at 11:22 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
They're being paid at a minimum something like $300,000 per year. I think that's well past the point where they qualify as 'poor'.
posted by Hatashran at 11:22 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
They're being paid at a minimum something like $300,000 per year. I think that's well past the point where they qualify as 'poor'.
Um. Unless we psychically identify pro football players at birth and pay their families $300,000 a year until they enter the NFL as young adults, this is like 12 miles away from the point.
Football players seldom come from a background equivalent to their NFL salaries. Low-income kids are lured into dangerous sports by the promise of wealth, and as there are few other avenues in our society for a poor person to become a not-poor person, people will absolutely wreck themselves for a chance at it.
posted by like_a_friend at 11:27 AM on October 13, 2014 [5 favorites]
Um. Unless we psychically identify pro football players at birth and pay their families $300,000 a year until they enter the NFL as young adults, this is like 12 miles away from the point.
Football players seldom come from a background equivalent to their NFL salaries. Low-income kids are lured into dangerous sports by the promise of wealth, and as there are few other avenues in our society for a poor person to become a not-poor person, people will absolutely wreck themselves for a chance at it.
posted by like_a_friend at 11:27 AM on October 13, 2014 [5 favorites]
It's entirely possible that you are, in fact, enabling a new generation of rapists, homophobes, and wife-beaters. You're supporting an industry that is problematically friendly to all three and, based on your defensive posture, probably not doing anything at all to make it LESS friendly to them. So yeah, you probably are enabling.
The question is, what are you gonna do about it?
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 12 year old girl. The entire Academy applauded him when he received an award. Mefites raise their kids to appreciate the arts, including cinema. Therefore, it is entirely possible that Mefites are raising and enabling generations of rapists.
See how that works?
posted by eagles123 at 12:05 PM on October 13, 2014 [9 favorites]
The question is, what are you gonna do about it?
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 12 year old girl. The entire Academy applauded him when he received an award. Mefites raise their kids to appreciate the arts, including cinema. Therefore, it is entirely possible that Mefites are raising and enabling generations of rapists.
See how that works?
posted by eagles123 at 12:05 PM on October 13, 2014 [9 favorites]
That analogy isn't really useful man. I understand wanting to defend the people who enjoy football from condemnation. But A. I don't think we're condemning. We're pointing out that there is something fundamentally violent about football that makes it different from everything else. This isn't exactly debatable right? And B. For many of us, we're former fans, not outsiders. We still like football, and understand how it works. We're just disagreeing about to what degree football itself can be changed to make it safer, less macho, etcetc. Some fans think it can be saved. Some don't think so. And some (nobody here) are in denial.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:13 PM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:13 PM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
It might not be a big deal in "polite" society, but then again, it never really was.
No, boxing used to be one of the most popular spectator sports in the US. It was nearly as big as football is now, and used to be the most popular sport in the US behind only the US's national sport, baseball (another sport that used to be bigger in the US but fell by the wayside due to concerns about doping).
posted by saulgoodman at 12:24 PM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
No, boxing used to be one of the most popular spectator sports in the US. It was nearly as big as football is now, and used to be the most popular sport in the US behind only the US's national sport, baseball (another sport that used to be bigger in the US but fell by the wayside due to concerns about doping).
posted by saulgoodman at 12:24 PM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
> What I saw as an NFL ball boy - NYTimes.
Also, ironic that that short piece would list off the ways in which players burn through the physical stuff of their minds and bodies for the game, only to conclude that football is a net good because:
One of my jobs was sorting through postgame laundry. Cleaner uniforms would be set aside for football card companies to purchase for their line of “game-used inserts.” Dirty uniforms, meanwhile, like all the girdles filled with blood and feces because some hits are savage enough to overpower the central nervous system, I’d put in a special bin for disposal.Is this really a thing?
Also, ironic that that short piece would list off the ways in which players burn through the physical stuff of their minds and bodies for the game, only to conclude that football is a net good because:
I know the game, during its best moments, is built upon core tenets of courage, perseverance, teamwork and, most of all, sacrifice.posted by postcommunism at 12:26 PM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
I have attended several NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, and MLS games. Of these, the MLS games attendance was sparse but I can say that the fans behaved nothing like what continues to be quite problematic in European football (throwing bananas at black players, say, or hooliganism). In fact, the only matches where I have repeatedly felt concerned about fan behavior have been MLB games (stay classy, Yankees fans who shove and throw beer!) and NHL fans. I have been horrified at the roaring response from crowds when a fight broke out four seconds into the match, and continued sporadically throughout. NHL games are also the only ones that I've attended where I witnessed fans also brawling in the stands.
NFL games, in contrast, have always, for me, been full of congenial trash-talking and even kindness (thanks, Vikes fan who loaned me a blanket!). I have had by far the most pleasant fan interactions at NFL games of all the major professional sports.
So while there are absolutely immediate ethical concerns about football, I'd really like for there to be a deeper interrogation of the class-race issues that seem to be protecting hockey or football-soccer (both sports are also very high risk for head injury and have problematic fans, to say the least) from a lot of this line of inquiry and boycott at the same time.
posted by TwoStride at 12:37 PM on October 13, 2014
NFL games, in contrast, have always, for me, been full of congenial trash-talking and even kindness (thanks, Vikes fan who loaned me a blanket!). I have had by far the most pleasant fan interactions at NFL games of all the major professional sports.
So while there are absolutely immediate ethical concerns about football, I'd really like for there to be a deeper interrogation of the class-race issues that seem to be protecting hockey or football-soccer (both sports are also very high risk for head injury and have problematic fans, to say the least) from a lot of this line of inquiry and boycott at the same time.
posted by TwoStride at 12:37 PM on October 13, 2014
I question the idea that anything is "protecting' hockey or soccer from criticism beyond the fact that the people who are criticizing the NFL are fans of American football, not of soccer or hockey. What class-race issues do you think are protecting hockey or soccer?
posted by muddgirl at 12:41 PM on October 13, 2014
posted by muddgirl at 12:41 PM on October 13, 2014
That analogy isn't really useful man. I understand wanting to defend the people who enjoy football from condemnation. But A. I don't think we're condemning. We're pointing out that there is something fundamentally violent about football that makes it different from everything else. This isn't exactly debatable right? And B. For many of us, we're former fans, not outsiders. We still like football, and understand how it works. We're just disagreeing about to what degree football itself can be changed to make it safer, less macho, etcetc. Some fans think it can be saved. Some don't think so. And some (nobody here) are in denial
Some would say that the cultural products of Hollywood are singularly violent. Not only that, some would say that Hollywood promotes a whole range of negative cultural tropes that harm people in many ways, including promoting such as acts as sexual assault. So, are you sure about football being some uniquely, fundamentally violent activity? Hockey isn't violent? Certain aspects surrounding European football fandom aren't violent, not to mention racist?
Even as a sport, the violence isn't the point. Football is derived from games like rugby, where the object is to advance the ball across a field without being tackled. Fundamentally, that is where the "violence" comes from. Rather than having possession changes due to "steals", as in games like soccer or basketball, possession changes when a ball carrier is tackled (or, in the case of football, is tacked 3 or 4 times without a team advancing the ball at least 10 yards or scoring). The fact that possession is so hard to disrupt in football on a given play compared to other sports has important tactical considerations that affect the game. Positioning, planning, and hence strategy and tactics becomes much more important in games like football than in other sports.
As I stated above, the point of football is to score. For most fans, the most joyous sight is not seeing somebody get injured, or even tackled, it is seeing their team's offensive player get the ball with only green grass in front of them. The only tackles that I can think of that reliably produce joy are sacks and tackles for a loss. The reason for this is simple: those are among the two best possible outcomes for a defense on a given play.
That being said, yes, there always was a "blood and guts" aspect to football. That aspect has diminished in importance over the years, however, not increased. More and more, rules are being put in place to protect player safety. The reason is simple: fans would rather see high scoring games and not see their favorite players injured than watch a reenactment of gladiatorial combat. Nobody wants to see their team's best offensive player inured by a brutal hit. Most complaints about those rule changes revolve around the arbitrariness of some rules (a defensive player's hand brushes a quarterback's helmet resulting in a 15 yard penalty) and their inconsistent application, rather than whether the aims of the rules are worth pursing. Additionally, there are concerns that the new rules are tipping the balance of the game too much in the in favor of offenses. None of that has anything to do with wanting to see violence for the sake of violence or watch people get hurt.
People are acting like football fans are all caricatures of Bears fans circa 1985 or Eagles fans circa 1990. Such is not the case. The game is evolving in a direction towards more concern for player safety. That evolution is being driven by fans' concerns, both for players and how the game is played. The "this monster is being created by our sins" hypothesis does not withstand scrutiny.
Also, with regard to boxing, there is a reason I put "polite society" in quotes. For most of boxing's history, the sport was outlawed. Fights were clandestine affairs attended by gamblers, and connections to organized crime were common. Even during boxing's heyday when fights were legally sanctioned by state sanctioning bodies, roughly between 1910 and 1980, there was constant concern from moral authorities regarding the violence of boxing and the general seediness surrounding it. Even as late the 1950's and 1960's there were allegations surrounding popular fighters like Rocky Marciano and Sonny Liston concerning mob connections and fixed fights. So yes, boxing was definitely massively popular, but the connection of the sport to polite society was always tenuous and not without challenge.
posted by eagles123 at 12:49 PM on October 13, 2014 [12 favorites]
Some would say that the cultural products of Hollywood are singularly violent. Not only that, some would say that Hollywood promotes a whole range of negative cultural tropes that harm people in many ways, including promoting such as acts as sexual assault. So, are you sure about football being some uniquely, fundamentally violent activity? Hockey isn't violent? Certain aspects surrounding European football fandom aren't violent, not to mention racist?
Even as a sport, the violence isn't the point. Football is derived from games like rugby, where the object is to advance the ball across a field without being tackled. Fundamentally, that is where the "violence" comes from. Rather than having possession changes due to "steals", as in games like soccer or basketball, possession changes when a ball carrier is tackled (or, in the case of football, is tacked 3 or 4 times without a team advancing the ball at least 10 yards or scoring). The fact that possession is so hard to disrupt in football on a given play compared to other sports has important tactical considerations that affect the game. Positioning, planning, and hence strategy and tactics becomes much more important in games like football than in other sports.
As I stated above, the point of football is to score. For most fans, the most joyous sight is not seeing somebody get injured, or even tackled, it is seeing their team's offensive player get the ball with only green grass in front of them. The only tackles that I can think of that reliably produce joy are sacks and tackles for a loss. The reason for this is simple: those are among the two best possible outcomes for a defense on a given play.
That being said, yes, there always was a "blood and guts" aspect to football. That aspect has diminished in importance over the years, however, not increased. More and more, rules are being put in place to protect player safety. The reason is simple: fans would rather see high scoring games and not see their favorite players injured than watch a reenactment of gladiatorial combat. Nobody wants to see their team's best offensive player inured by a brutal hit. Most complaints about those rule changes revolve around the arbitrariness of some rules (a defensive player's hand brushes a quarterback's helmet resulting in a 15 yard penalty) and their inconsistent application, rather than whether the aims of the rules are worth pursing. Additionally, there are concerns that the new rules are tipping the balance of the game too much in the in favor of offenses. None of that has anything to do with wanting to see violence for the sake of violence or watch people get hurt.
People are acting like football fans are all caricatures of Bears fans circa 1985 or Eagles fans circa 1990. Such is not the case. The game is evolving in a direction towards more concern for player safety. That evolution is being driven by fans' concerns, both for players and how the game is played. The "this monster is being created by our sins" hypothesis does not withstand scrutiny.
Also, with regard to boxing, there is a reason I put "polite society" in quotes. For most of boxing's history, the sport was outlawed. Fights were clandestine affairs attended by gamblers, and connections to organized crime were common. Even during boxing's heyday when fights were legally sanctioned by state sanctioning bodies, roughly between 1910 and 1980, there was constant concern from moral authorities regarding the violence of boxing and the general seediness surrounding it. Even as late the 1950's and 1960's there were allegations surrounding popular fighters like Rocky Marciano and Sonny Liston concerning mob connections and fixed fights. So yes, boxing was definitely massively popular, but the connection of the sport to polite society was always tenuous and not without challenge.
posted by eagles123 at 12:49 PM on October 13, 2014 [12 favorites]
(Thanks for the clarification eagles123. I see what you meant now and agree.)
posted by saulgoodman at 12:55 PM on October 13, 2014
posted by saulgoodman at 12:55 PM on October 13, 2014
Is this really a thing?
Yup
I understood postcommunism to be asking "Is NFL players pooping themselves really a thing?"
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:55 PM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yup
I understood postcommunism to be asking "Is NFL players pooping themselves really a thing?"
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:55 PM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
For those, like me, who see soccer as a better model, Soccer concussions are more frequent than you think.
(I don't pretend that's apples and oranges, since soccer doesn't have linemen, but it's interesting.)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 1:00 PM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
(I don't pretend that's apples and oranges, since soccer doesn't have linemen, but it's interesting.)
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 1:00 PM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
The easiest way to stop caring about football is to grow up as a Lions fan.
posted by klangklangston at 1:01 PM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by klangklangston at 1:01 PM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
US Football is an amazingly complex turn based strategy game that to my mind is much more like a board game or table-top strategy game than it is like most other sports. I'd love to see a version of the game that preserves the strategy but cuts out most or all of the violence.
It is precisely the violence that makes it popular and profitable. What do most football fans most want to see? Big hits. See Dick Butkus hits.
posted by bukvich at 1:21 PM on October 13, 2014
It is precisely the violence that makes it popular and profitable. What do most football fans most want to see? Big hits. See Dick Butkus hits.
posted by bukvich at 1:21 PM on October 13, 2014
Muddgirl, yes, on the one hand, a lot of this is a numbers game (football being the most popular professional sport) and/or a sort of personal, "I as a fan have had this realization" exhortation (Almond)--but if the concerns are truly about the health of the players and the greater societal effects on the fandom, then a far more responsible approach would be to look at this comparatively across sports. I am genuinely curious--not concern-trolling--about why concerns about hockey flare up every other year or so, but have not yet hit critical mass in a way the NFL has. Do we think it ever will? Hockey, too, encourages violence on the ice, has a history of players enganging in criminal acts off the ice, and has former players suing about brain injuries. Research is now emerging that soccer produces as much head trauma as football, and that strikers and defenders, especially, show cognitive impairment through a combination of heading the ball and goal-scoring/defending collisions.* How much is this about how the media covers these sports? What can that tell us, in terms of popular sports narratives as shaped by the media?
If the questions truly are, "how do we enjoy sports and reduce the violence in the games and trauamtic brain injury" and "how do we produce fans who are less racist/homophobic/whatever" then we need a larger discussion. I enjoy all of these sports and many others; I'd certainly like to think about how all of them can take less of a physical and emotional toll on the athletes providing our entertainment. Absent that larger discussion, a lot of the concerns now being voiced about the NFL, to me, raise issues about our extremely complicated history with the specter of the physically imposing/dangerous black man (see: the Richard Sherman "thug" debacle after the Superbowl), and the country's perception of black athletes as a whole.
Other sports dilemmas: I also wonder about the ethics of enjoying F1 racing given the terrible environmental toll I'm sure it takes.
(*For kids, but a good overview with citations.)
posted by TwoStride at 1:25 PM on October 13, 2014
If the questions truly are, "how do we enjoy sports and reduce the violence in the games and trauamtic brain injury" and "how do we produce fans who are less racist/homophobic/whatever" then we need a larger discussion. I enjoy all of these sports and many others; I'd certainly like to think about how all of them can take less of a physical and emotional toll on the athletes providing our entertainment. Absent that larger discussion, a lot of the concerns now being voiced about the NFL, to me, raise issues about our extremely complicated history with the specter of the physically imposing/dangerous black man (see: the Richard Sherman "thug" debacle after the Superbowl), and the country's perception of black athletes as a whole.
Other sports dilemmas: I also wonder about the ethics of enjoying F1 racing given the terrible environmental toll I'm sure it takes.
(*For kids, but a good overview with citations.)
posted by TwoStride at 1:25 PM on October 13, 2014
Pooping yourself playing football is also a thing. Deadspin posts about it pretty often.
posted by drezdn at 1:33 PM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by drezdn at 1:33 PM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
Roman Polanski drugged and raped a 12 year old girl. The entire Academy applauded him when he received an award. Mefites raise their kids to appreciate the arts, including cinema. Therefore, it is entirely possible that Mefites are raising and enabling generations of rapists.
Your mistake is in assuming that I would disagree with this.
I actually feel like participating in Hollywood/celebrity/fame culture (specifically Hollywood, as opposed to, say, underground cinema--because really it's all about how wealth insulates terrible people from facing the consequences of their actions) IS basically endorsing and enabling a lot of toxic bullshit.
It's almost impossible to avoid all of the toxic institutions currently at play in the world and I wouldn't ask anyone to try. But we do have a responsibility to interrogate the things we participate in and work to minimize their toxicity where we can.
posted by like_a_friend at 1:49 PM on October 13, 2014 [5 favorites]
Your mistake is in assuming that I would disagree with this.
I actually feel like participating in Hollywood/celebrity/fame culture (specifically Hollywood, as opposed to, say, underground cinema--because really it's all about how wealth insulates terrible people from facing the consequences of their actions) IS basically endorsing and enabling a lot of toxic bullshit.
It's almost impossible to avoid all of the toxic institutions currently at play in the world and I wouldn't ask anyone to try. But we do have a responsibility to interrogate the things we participate in and work to minimize their toxicity where we can.
posted by like_a_friend at 1:49 PM on October 13, 2014 [5 favorites]
> I understood postcommunism to be asking "Is NFL players pooping themselves really a thing?"
Nope, but the distinction being between "irreparably soiled by unwanted bodily fluids" and "sale-ably soiled by wanted bodily fluids" colored my surprise; in retrospect, the value is probably in the "used in a real game!" aspect rather than "sweat of real linebacker!" sort of thing I would have associated with people buying unwashed clothing on the internet.
posted by postcommunism at 2:04 PM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
Nope, but the distinction being between "irreparably soiled by unwanted bodily fluids" and "sale-ably soiled by wanted bodily fluids" colored my surprise; in retrospect, the value is probably in the "used in a real game!" aspect rather than "sweat of real linebacker!" sort of thing I would have associated with people buying unwashed clothing on the internet.
posted by postcommunism at 2:04 PM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]
Oh, involuntary football player pooping needs to become a meme badly.
posted by JHarris at 2:22 PM on October 13, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 2:22 PM on October 13, 2014 [4 favorites]
Absent that larger discussion, a lot of the concerns now being voiced about the NFL, to me, raise issues about our extremely complicated history with the specter of the physically imposing/dangerous black man (see: the Richard Sherman "thug" debacle after the Superbowl), and the country's perception of black athletes as a whole.
I guess I personally find it hard to engage in a larger discussion about sports I'm not a fan of. I can't answer questions like, "How concerned is the MLS organization and team owners about concussions? Is there any movement to limit concussive hits? Have they been hiding or minimizing scientific research into the effects of soccer on players?" and so on. I'm ethically uncomfortable with continuing to watch the NFL not because it's harmful (as others have noted, everything worth doing is a bit dangerous), but because the NFL organization has been repeatedly uncaring about that harm until they are publicly called out, at which point the measures they take appear half-hearted and for-show. I only know this because I'm a fan and have been following what's going on.
As for the specter of the dangerous black man, I find Chait's argument that football is a positive societal force because it civilizes otherwise-brutish people, to be much closer to that racist stereotype.
posted by muddgirl at 2:29 PM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
I guess I personally find it hard to engage in a larger discussion about sports I'm not a fan of. I can't answer questions like, "How concerned is the MLS organization and team owners about concussions? Is there any movement to limit concussive hits? Have they been hiding or minimizing scientific research into the effects of soccer on players?" and so on. I'm ethically uncomfortable with continuing to watch the NFL not because it's harmful (as others have noted, everything worth doing is a bit dangerous), but because the NFL organization has been repeatedly uncaring about that harm until they are publicly called out, at which point the measures they take appear half-hearted and for-show. I only know this because I'm a fan and have been following what's going on.
As for the specter of the dangerous black man, I find Chait's argument that football is a positive societal force because it civilizes otherwise-brutish people, to be much closer to that racist stereotype.
posted by muddgirl at 2:29 PM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
I do like the game of football. I love to watch Playbook or the NFL Matchup programs, where people who really understand the game talk about how a certain formation and route scheme can be used against a given defense. The level of thought behind some of these plays is just beautiful, e.g. "These two receivers will run down field and then cross wherever they meet the defenders, leaving the outside man open."
I don't like the fact that the game still involves men hitting other men so hard they shit their pants. Or that it perpetuates a mindless version of manliness that only respects the ability to do violence.
That's something I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I can't figure out how to square that circle. In some senses, especially to young men, the measure of a man is his ability to protect kith and kin from the violence of other men, and that's not good for anybody. Yet backing down from that unilaterally just opens you up to violence done by men who still live by might makes right.
To the extent the NFL glorifies violence without the concomitant glorification of duty and honor that are meant to channel aggression productively — q.v.
posted by ob1quixote at 2:32 PM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
I don't like the fact that the game still involves men hitting other men so hard they shit their pants. Or that it perpetuates a mindless version of manliness that only respects the ability to do violence.
That's something I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I can't figure out how to square that circle. In some senses, especially to young men, the measure of a man is his ability to protect kith and kin from the violence of other men, and that's not good for anybody. Yet backing down from that unilaterally just opens you up to violence done by men who still live by might makes right.
To the extent the NFL glorifies violence without the concomitant glorification of duty and honor that are meant to channel aggression productively — q.v.
The NFL Cover-Up That Started It All,Gary Buiso, The New York Post, 12 October 2014 — they are directly responsible for the perpetuation of a culture that didn't really work when there was 100 million fewer people in the country. It's definitely not going to work in 21st century America.
posted by ob1quixote at 2:32 PM on October 13, 2014 [3 favorites]
I dislike football and haven't seen a game in at least 20 years, even though I do have warm nostalgic memories of watching football at thanksgiving with my dad and brother.
I'm mainly posting to note that although football is long dead to me, I suspect I probably would like hockey a great deal if it weren't for the fights, and hard hits, and post-game interviews with men missing most of their teeth and with puck-shaped scars on their faces. The thing is, the super fast pace of the game is very, very compelling to me, and on the rare occasions I've watched it, I've been sort of entranced.
FWIW, though, the rare bits of hockey I've watched have mostly been hockey at the Olympics rather than NHL hockey. I've heard that the Olympics rules and rink dimensions make the game somewhat more about speed and precision and less about fights and hard hits.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:41 PM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
I'm mainly posting to note that although football is long dead to me, I suspect I probably would like hockey a great deal if it weren't for the fights, and hard hits, and post-game interviews with men missing most of their teeth and with puck-shaped scars on their faces. The thing is, the super fast pace of the game is very, very compelling to me, and on the rare occasions I've watched it, I've been sort of entranced.
FWIW, though, the rare bits of hockey I've watched have mostly been hockey at the Olympics rather than NHL hockey. I've heard that the Olympics rules and rink dimensions make the game somewhat more about speed and precision and less about fights and hard hits.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 2:41 PM on October 13, 2014 [1 favorite]
No, it really doesn't. This is fantasy and conspiracy theory.
That also is more bullshit.
NFL’s elaborate security network is supposed to protect league from trouble
It's no conspiracy or fantasy. It is right there. Completely unhidden public knowledge.
I think a real fantasy is imagining that the NFL has less clout than the local high school.
posted by srboisvert at 3:57 PM on October 13, 2014 [8 favorites]
That also is more bullshit.
NFL’s elaborate security network is supposed to protect league from trouble
It's no conspiracy or fantasy. It is right there. Completely unhidden public knowledge.
I think a real fantasy is imagining that the NFL has less clout than the local high school.
posted by srboisvert at 3:57 PM on October 13, 2014 [8 favorites]
In defense of holybagel:
I think maybe what was said was: a good way for young players to improve their game is by watching how the professionals play the game...so suggesting someone not watch a game might be asking them to limit their own players' development.
Our sons have played organized basketball, baseball, wrestling, (the oldest, a brief stint on his own accord at football - he did not enjoy it) and now solely soccer because at some point we had to consolidate. They are athletic, talented and have been rewarded for their efforts. Good sportsmanship, a strong work ethic, and humility are characterics we look to sport to help us foster in our children. Of course, agression is necessary in competitive sport. But as their parents we will decided what level of aggression is appropriate for our children to embody both on the field and at home. More than once we have had to have some conversations with their coaches that go something like this: "You said some pretty fucked up shit to my kid and we don't appreciate it. It will not happen again if you want my kid to play for you." These kinds of vibes also need to be thrown at our own team and other team parents on the sidlelines of games.
I don't know what it is, but sport really brings out the worst in some people.
posted by Emor at 5:39 PM on October 13, 2014
I think maybe what was said was: a good way for young players to improve their game is by watching how the professionals play the game...so suggesting someone not watch a game might be asking them to limit their own players' development.
Our sons have played organized basketball, baseball, wrestling, (the oldest, a brief stint on his own accord at football - he did not enjoy it) and now solely soccer because at some point we had to consolidate. They are athletic, talented and have been rewarded for their efforts. Good sportsmanship, a strong work ethic, and humility are characterics we look to sport to help us foster in our children. Of course, agression is necessary in competitive sport. But as their parents we will decided what level of aggression is appropriate for our children to embody both on the field and at home. More than once we have had to have some conversations with their coaches that go something like this: "You said some pretty fucked up shit to my kid and we don't appreciate it. It will not happen again if you want my kid to play for you." These kinds of vibes also need to be thrown at our own team and other team parents on the sidlelines of games.
I don't know what it is, but sport really brings out the worst in some people.
posted by Emor at 5:39 PM on October 13, 2014
Football has been a constant in my life since I was a boy. It is an important part of familial ties. But I'll spend no money in it ever again, due to the concussion issue. No more tickets, gear, etc. No special NFL channels.
posted by persona au gratin at 11:16 PM on October 13, 2014
posted by persona au gratin at 11:16 PM on October 13, 2014
Any traction on efforts to remove the NFL and football teams' status as tax-exempt non-profit organizations? (Apologies if this is a derail. Except for following Ta Nehisi Coates' blogommentary and the various struggles of actual Vicks' dogs rescuers v. PETA, I'm a bit out of the loop.)
posted by Lesser Shrew at 7:28 AM on October 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Lesser Shrew at 7:28 AM on October 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
Only the NFL League Office is tax exempt. The teams are not. Snopes Link
There are good reasons for this to change, but it's not like the entire $10B+ in league revenue is exempt, just a small part dealing with league issues.
posted by rocket88 at 9:37 AM on October 14, 2014
There are good reasons for this to change, but it's not like the entire $10B+ in league revenue is exempt, just a small part dealing with league issues.
posted by rocket88 at 9:37 AM on October 14, 2014
Seriously, Metafilter? Do you not see how this topic is dripping with class superiority and cheap moralizing?
We have to save the Southern black players who dominate football from the sport they love and the wealth they get playing it, because we're too refined to brook this violence. And they can't decide for themselves because.... um it's addictive like meth. Actually it's worse than meth because "meth addicts aren't at least paid to wreck their lives." (??!?!?)
Instead -- and I can't believe I'm not making any of this up -- Metafilter suggests professional flag football, and fencing, and Quidditch.
Nope, no class issues there. No one should be allowed in this topic until they've read Paul Fussell's Class.
posted by msalt at 11:41 AM on October 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
We have to save the Southern black players who dominate football from the sport they love and the wealth they get playing it, because we're too refined to brook this violence. And they can't decide for themselves because.... um it's addictive like meth. Actually it's worse than meth because "meth addicts aren't at least paid to wreck their lives." (??!?!?)
Instead -- and I can't believe I'm not making any of this up -- Metafilter suggests professional flag football, and fencing, and Quidditch.
Nope, no class issues there. No one should be allowed in this topic until they've read Paul Fussell's Class.
posted by msalt at 11:41 AM on October 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
It could be argued that no one should be allowed to comment on Metafilter until they learn not to mix different peoples' arguments up with each other in order to create hyperbolic strawmen.
posted by JHarris at 12:01 PM on October 14, 2014 [7 favorites]
posted by JHarris at 12:01 PM on October 14, 2014 [7 favorites]
Today I Learned that only well-off white people play flag football.
posted by muddgirl at 12:19 PM on October 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by muddgirl at 12:19 PM on October 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
Also, I can't wait for the thought piece about how we should abolish OSHA because it just a manifestation of white liberal savior complex.
posted by muddgirl at 12:21 PM on October 14, 2014
posted by muddgirl at 12:21 PM on October 14, 2014
Well, I've read Paul Fussell's Class and I also agree that MeFi as a whole can sometimes be unconsciously deeply bourgeois in its worldview, yet I still think your comment is pretty much 100% bullshit — because like Chait, you're allowing a culture war over the connotations of consuming the sport as entertainment to mask a deeply false picture of its production.
We have to save the Southern black players who dominate football from the sport they love and the wealth they get playing it
This is absurd on so many levels that it really suggests that a serious misunderstanding about almost all of what people have said here. Injury to players is first and foremost an issue of labor politics, as is pay (and it's simply bizarre to suggest that football, like any sport, makes any but a tiny handful of the luckiest and/or most talented players wealthy — indeed, bringing up players' wealth while not talking about owners' is almost always a reliable tell of hard-right, unquestioningly pro-management labor politics in sports discussions). To portray the desire to protect athletes from injury as cultural condescension or "saving" them from themselves is just plain wrong; it's a basic show of solidarity with other workers to be concerned about their deeply destructive workplace. To imply that people should be able to "decide for themselves" whether to accept life-destroying working conditions is just wrongheaded. And playing the anti-snob card on behalf of a zillion-dollar entertainment industry this way, as if calculatedly folksy-marketed cultural consumption were the same thing as class-conscious politics, is a recipe not for actual awareness of class, but for playing straight into the hand of right-wing anti-intellectualism and obfuscatory Nascar-dad-vs-soccer-mom culture war, a consumer "politics" which occupies everyone's attention while a real class war is being waged, and won, elsewhere.
More Dave Zirin, less Paul Fussell.
posted by RogerB at 12:23 PM on October 14, 2014 [3 favorites]
We have to save the Southern black players who dominate football from the sport they love and the wealth they get playing it
This is absurd on so many levels that it really suggests that a serious misunderstanding about almost all of what people have said here. Injury to players is first and foremost an issue of labor politics, as is pay (and it's simply bizarre to suggest that football, like any sport, makes any but a tiny handful of the luckiest and/or most talented players wealthy — indeed, bringing up players' wealth while not talking about owners' is almost always a reliable tell of hard-right, unquestioningly pro-management labor politics in sports discussions). To portray the desire to protect athletes from injury as cultural condescension or "saving" them from themselves is just plain wrong; it's a basic show of solidarity with other workers to be concerned about their deeply destructive workplace. To imply that people should be able to "decide for themselves" whether to accept life-destroying working conditions is just wrongheaded. And playing the anti-snob card on behalf of a zillion-dollar entertainment industry this way, as if calculatedly folksy-marketed cultural consumption were the same thing as class-conscious politics, is a recipe not for actual awareness of class, but for playing straight into the hand of right-wing anti-intellectualism and obfuscatory Nascar-dad-vs-soccer-mom culture war, a consumer "politics" which occupies everyone's attention while a real class war is being waged, and won, elsewhere.
More Dave Zirin, less Paul Fussell.
posted by RogerB at 12:23 PM on October 14, 2014 [3 favorites]
Also, I can't wait for the thought piece about how we should abolish OSHA because it just a manifestation of white liberal savior complex.
More or less that, by Matt Yglesias
posted by RogerB at 12:33 PM on October 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
More or less that, by Matt Yglesias
posted by RogerB at 12:33 PM on October 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
RogerB: Injury to players is first and foremost an issue of labor politics, as is pay (and it's simply bizarre to suggest that football, like any sport, makes any but a tiny handful of the luckiest and/or most talented players wealthy — indeed, bringing up players' wealth while not talking about owners' is almost always a reliable tell of hard-right, unquestioningly pro-management labor politics in sports discussions). To portray the desire to protect athletes from injury as cultural condescension or "saving" them from themselves is just plain wrong; it's a basic show of solidarity with other workers ...
That's a lot of condescension and pontificating right there, and a harsh, deeply ignorant personal attack that I think is way out of line.
I'm a union member (SEIU). Are you?
NFL players have a union, a very powerful one that has negotiated a contract full of restrictions on every aspect of the game, including off-season practices. How interesting that you're lecturing me on labor solidarity, yet not one person in this long thread has mentioned the player's union.
posted by msalt at 12:55 PM on October 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
That's a lot of condescension and pontificating right there, and a harsh, deeply ignorant personal attack that I think is way out of line.
I'm a union member (SEIU). Are you?
NFL players have a union, a very powerful one that has negotiated a contract full of restrictions on every aspect of the game, including off-season practices. How interesting that you're lecturing me on labor solidarity, yet not one person in this long thread has mentioned the player's union.
posted by msalt at 12:55 PM on October 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
One huge part of the reason that I feel ethically uncomfortable continuing to watch the NFL is because of many allegations made by the players union itself about how the NFL disregards players safety.
posted by muddgirl at 3:04 PM on October 14, 2014
posted by muddgirl at 3:04 PM on October 14, 2014
If the player's union isn't advocating for lifetime medical and legal coverage, they're doing it wrong.
posted by mikelieman at 3:42 PM on October 14, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by mikelieman at 3:42 PM on October 14, 2014 [3 favorites]
Oh man, if the Pro Bowl were touch (not flag, touch) football AND there were no refs but the players had to ref themselves, I would watch the SHIT out of that. Watching 250-pound, 30-year-old men who are professional athletes bicker over whether the "tackler" got a full palm or just a finger on the running back would be some good TV.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:18 PM on October 14, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:18 PM on October 14, 2014 [4 favorites]
The union is being sued by some former players for not doing enough to protect them, and for actively covering up research results showing that the concussion effects were much worse.
posted by rtha at 4:19 PM on October 14, 2014
posted by rtha at 4:19 PM on October 14, 2014
So what you're saying is that you know what is good and bad for players better than the players themselves, and also better than their (very effective) union? And the union is part of the problem (based on a lawsuit by 6 ex-players), even though this is an issue of labor solidarity? Hmm.
Here's what I think a lot of people are missing. The taste for being tough, showing valor and playing rough varies a lot with class. Very few people who are not middle to upper middle class consider that "toxic masculinity," which should be eliminated in a perfect world. And the people who value physical toughness are not wrong.
I see a lot of folks trying to impose their class standards on people who don't agree, and this is nothing new. "The poor/working class/white trash are violent brutes, unlike us, and must be controlled" is a trope that goes back centuries, and probably to the ancient Greeks. It has as much to do with claiming class superiority as any genuine sympathy.
posted by msalt at 8:46 PM on October 14, 2014
Here's what I think a lot of people are missing. The taste for being tough, showing valor and playing rough varies a lot with class. Very few people who are not middle to upper middle class consider that "toxic masculinity," which should be eliminated in a perfect world. And the people who value physical toughness are not wrong.
I see a lot of folks trying to impose their class standards on people who don't agree, and this is nothing new. "The poor/working class/white trash are violent brutes, unlike us, and must be controlled" is a trope that goes back centuries, and probably to the ancient Greeks. It has as much to do with claiming class superiority as any genuine sympathy.
posted by msalt at 8:46 PM on October 14, 2014
msalt, advocating that people should injure themselves for are amusement is much more problematic than advocating that they shouldn't.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:54 PM on October 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 8:54 PM on October 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
I see a lot of folks trying to impose their class standards on people who don't agree, and this is nothing new. "The poor/working class/white trash are violent brutes, unlike us, and must be controlled" is a trope that goes back centuries, and probably to the ancient Greeks. It has as much to do with claiming class superiority as any genuine sympathy.
This is not an argument against (for example) football being violent in ways that cause permanent brain damage, and it's certainly not a defense of the NFL's appalling and immoral decades-long denial of the the facts. Calling people bougie is not an argument.
posted by rtha at 9:14 PM on October 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
This is not an argument against (for example) football being violent in ways that cause permanent brain damage, and it's certainly not a defense of the NFL's appalling and immoral decades-long denial of the the facts. Calling people bougie is not an argument.
posted by rtha at 9:14 PM on October 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
rtha: I haven't seen anyone defend the NFL as an organization in this long thread.
CTE is a real and serious problem. Organized football (at all levels) has been making changes every year in an attempt to address it, and I'm sure will continue to.
Where's your outrage over soccer, which (at least here in Portland) a majority of elementary school girls and boys participate in? It has a significant risk of permanent brain damage, and a lot more kids (including both my daughters) participate than ever play football.
We live in a world where several dangerous and often brain-damaging sports are popular, both for participation and viewing -- ultimate fighting and mixed martial arts, rodeo for crissakes, downhill skiing, soccer, lacrosse, rugby, hang-gliding, sky-diving, auto racing, motorcycle racing, skateboarding, X-games, etc.
No one here has any problem with people in those sports making their choice to take those risks, for pay or not. Is it a coincidence that the participants in those sports are mostly white and middle class? I don't think so.
msalt, advocating that people should injure themselves for are amusement is much more problematic than advocating that they shouldn't.
Maybe. If someone ever does that, we can discuss it then.
posted by msalt at 10:09 PM on October 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
CTE is a real and serious problem. Organized football (at all levels) has been making changes every year in an attempt to address it, and I'm sure will continue to.
Where's your outrage over soccer, which (at least here in Portland) a majority of elementary school girls and boys participate in? It has a significant risk of permanent brain damage, and a lot more kids (including both my daughters) participate than ever play football.
We live in a world where several dangerous and often brain-damaging sports are popular, both for participation and viewing -- ultimate fighting and mixed martial arts, rodeo for crissakes, downhill skiing, soccer, lacrosse, rugby, hang-gliding, sky-diving, auto racing, motorcycle racing, skateboarding, X-games, etc.
No one here has any problem with people in those sports making their choice to take those risks, for pay or not. Is it a coincidence that the participants in those sports are mostly white and middle class? I don't think so.
msalt, advocating that people should injure themselves for are amusement is much more problematic than advocating that they shouldn't.
Maybe. If someone ever does that, we can discuss it then.
posted by msalt at 10:09 PM on October 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
No one here has any problem with people in those sports making their choice to take those risks, for pay or not. Is it a coincidence that the participants in those sports are mostly white and middle class? I don't think so.
Framing football like its social, cultural, and economic weight is somehow so tiny that it can be compared to hang-gliding is ridiculous. It is an absurd way to frame your argument. It is a gorilla of such humungous size and power that the suspension of a college program over its coverup of a child raper caused rioting, alumni rescinding donations, and endless moaning about #notallfootballfans. I mean christ.
Call me bougie all you want; I don't give a fuck. It doesn't change the facts that football wreaks an unacceptable amount of destruction on its players, their families, and they're not all that for the cities that indebt their citizens to teams that demand ever newer stadiums. Bleh on that.
posted by rtha at 10:26 PM on October 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
Framing football like its social, cultural, and economic weight is somehow so tiny that it can be compared to hang-gliding is ridiculous. It is an absurd way to frame your argument. It is a gorilla of such humungous size and power that the suspension of a college program over its coverup of a child raper caused rioting, alumni rescinding donations, and endless moaning about #notallfootballfans. I mean christ.
Call me bougie all you want; I don't give a fuck. It doesn't change the facts that football wreaks an unacceptable amount of destruction on its players, their families, and they're not all that for the cities that indebt their citizens to teams that demand ever newer stadiums. Bleh on that.
posted by rtha at 10:26 PM on October 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
Oh, for fuck's sale, msalt, don't be ridiculous. Midfielders aren't launching themselves head first at strikers at full speed in an attempt to separate them from the ball. I've been a football fan all my life, but don't be so ridiculous as to put soccer and the NFL in the same conversation. Yes, there's a non-zero risk of concussion with headers in soccer and the possibility of freak collisions in other situations, but there's been a player down on the field for extended time from a big hit in just about every NFL game I've watched this season, and probably more concussions or possible concussion "bell ringings" that had to be cleared with medical staff every week than you get in an entire season of soccer.
There are real issues of white privilege bias in sports, but you're really stretching the truth to try to put the concern for player safety in the NFL in that category.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:27 PM on October 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
There are real issues of white privilege bias in sports, but you're really stretching the truth to try to put the concern for player safety in the NFL in that category.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:27 PM on October 14, 2014 [1 favorite]
Now who's in denial?
The thing about soccer -- and you haven't even addressed rodeo, lacrosse, etc. -- is that players do not wear protective helmets, and that more than 10 times more people play soccer (13 million) than football (1.7 million) in the U.S. So a lower risk might lead to more injured people.
Also, football players aren't launching themselves head first at players either - that's illegal (a recent change) and repeated offenses will lead to suspension (e.g. Washington's Brandon Merriweather).
CTE is most commonly associated with football and boxing, but the disease has been found in the brain tissue of hockey players, wrestlers and, recently, in a Major League Baseball player. (CNN, 2/28/2014)
Among high school sports, only football has a higher rate of concussions than girls' soccer, according to several studies. And the trauma can come in many ways — from heading the ball; from a collision; or, as in Twellman's case, by taking a hand, knee or elbow to the head. ...
Indeed, some studies have found that head injuries account for as many as one-fifth of all soccer injuries. And the National Institutes of Health believes the actual number may be much higher because many concussions go unrecognized. (LA Times, 2012)
Research has shown that the brain structure of soccer players undergo changes that other athletes with low exposure to head trauma do not. In a collaborative study between Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Germany, scientists found that the brains of 12 young German soccer players without a history of concussion showed signs of mild traumatic brain injury. ...
And like the NFL, soccer has seen a few high-profile cases of suicide. Robert Enke, a German goalkeeper at the height of his career, threw himself in front of a moving train in 2009. ... Last year the former Wales captain Gary Speed hanged himself at home." (Lattitude News, 2013)
posted by msalt at 12:00 AM on October 15, 2014
The thing about soccer -- and you haven't even addressed rodeo, lacrosse, etc. -- is that players do not wear protective helmets, and that more than 10 times more people play soccer (13 million) than football (1.7 million) in the U.S. So a lower risk might lead to more injured people.
Also, football players aren't launching themselves head first at players either - that's illegal (a recent change) and repeated offenses will lead to suspension (e.g. Washington's Brandon Merriweather).
CTE is most commonly associated with football and boxing, but the disease has been found in the brain tissue of hockey players, wrestlers and, recently, in a Major League Baseball player. (CNN, 2/28/2014)
Among high school sports, only football has a higher rate of concussions than girls' soccer, according to several studies. And the trauma can come in many ways — from heading the ball; from a collision; or, as in Twellman's case, by taking a hand, knee or elbow to the head. ...
Indeed, some studies have found that head injuries account for as many as one-fifth of all soccer injuries. And the National Institutes of Health believes the actual number may be much higher because many concussions go unrecognized. (LA Times, 2012)
Research has shown that the brain structure of soccer players undergo changes that other athletes with low exposure to head trauma do not. In a collaborative study between Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Germany, scientists found that the brains of 12 young German soccer players without a history of concussion showed signs of mild traumatic brain injury. ...
And like the NFL, soccer has seen a few high-profile cases of suicide. Robert Enke, a German goalkeeper at the height of his career, threw himself in front of a moving train in 2009. ... Last year the former Wales captain Gary Speed hanged himself at home." (Lattitude News, 2013)
posted by msalt at 12:00 AM on October 15, 2014
rtha: Are you saying that football players don't really have a choice whether to play or not, because football is so popular? Huh. Still seems a bit paternalistic.
Do soccer players have a choice? My daughters faced intense peer group pressure to play (and did, all through elementary school).
posted by msalt at 12:05 AM on October 15, 2014
Do soccer players have a choice? My daughters faced intense peer group pressure to play (and did, all through elementary school).
posted by msalt at 12:05 AM on October 15, 2014
"No one here has any problem with people in those sports making their choice to take those risks, for pay or not."
I ... actually have a problem with a lot of those things, particularly soccer and lacrosse. But then I'm coming at this from the angle of someone who oversaw high school athletics and the purchasing of insurance for same, so I'm probably more aware than the average bear of the concussion rates in those sports. (Soccer, in particular, is a bit of a nightmare right now, because it's a year-round competitive sport -- football is not -- and there's much less awareness of head trauma in youth soccer than youth football, and kids aren't pulled off the field, nor are headers aggressively policed yet. So you've got kids playing ALL YEAR, taking a hit to the head, and practicing heading the ball the next day. NOT GREAT, GUYS.)
But I feel like there are a bunch of conflated issues in this thread and people are talking past each other. There's concerns about safety in youth sports; concerns about safety in adult sports (where adults can consent to known risks); concerns about risk disclosure in adult sports (inadequate until recently), most particularly and currently in the NFL; concerns about the culture that surrounds football in general (i.e., Friday Night Lights); concerns about the culture of the NFL and surrounding the NFL; and a discussion about whether player behavior is more violent than non-player behavior as a result of sports training, self-selection, or brain damage. Those are a lot of things to conflate all together!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:20 AM on October 15, 2014 [4 favorites]
I ... actually have a problem with a lot of those things, particularly soccer and lacrosse. But then I'm coming at this from the angle of someone who oversaw high school athletics and the purchasing of insurance for same, so I'm probably more aware than the average bear of the concussion rates in those sports. (Soccer, in particular, is a bit of a nightmare right now, because it's a year-round competitive sport -- football is not -- and there's much less awareness of head trauma in youth soccer than youth football, and kids aren't pulled off the field, nor are headers aggressively policed yet. So you've got kids playing ALL YEAR, taking a hit to the head, and practicing heading the ball the next day. NOT GREAT, GUYS.)
But I feel like there are a bunch of conflated issues in this thread and people are talking past each other. There's concerns about safety in youth sports; concerns about safety in adult sports (where adults can consent to known risks); concerns about risk disclosure in adult sports (inadequate until recently), most particularly and currently in the NFL; concerns about the culture that surrounds football in general (i.e., Friday Night Lights); concerns about the culture of the NFL and surrounding the NFL; and a discussion about whether player behavior is more violent than non-player behavior as a result of sports training, self-selection, or brain damage. Those are a lot of things to conflate all together!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:20 AM on October 15, 2014 [4 favorites]
msalt, there is nothing, literally nothing in your cite that contradicts what I said.
First off, I don't know where you're getting your numbers. The 1.7 million figure for total football participation in the U.S. is way off, as the number just for ages 6-14 in Pop Warner was 2.8 million last year (though that's a sharp decline from previous years.) Meanwhile, the numbers for youth soccer, which actually covers a much larger age group (5-19) than Pop Warner, were actually around 3 million in 2012, and since ~half of those are girls, I don't think it's fair to compare the total soccer numbers to football's boys only numbers. Also, the 13 million number for soccer you're citing seems to come from U.S. census data for people (children and adults) who self-report that they play soccer at least once per year. You're clearly a very smart guy who knows a lot about sports, so seeing you compare apples and oranges here (and the wrong apples and oranges at that!) is very surprising.
Furthermore, the fact that up to 1/5 of soccer injuries are head injuries says nothing about the overall incidence compared to football, and contrary to your assertions, the best available data shows (p. 16) that football players get injured more (3.78 per 1,000 vs. soccer's 1.64 per 1,000), have more total injuries (559k vs 172k, or if you want to lump girls in, 559k vs 394k), and more total incidence of concussion (p. 26 vs. pp. 35, 43, 131k for football vs 39k for boys' soccer and 53k for girls' soccer.)
I mean, look, I agree with your overall point that people underestimate the risk of playing other sports, and we should certainly talk about the racial / geographical dynamic, but it's an unassailable fact that football causes more injuries in general and more concussions in particular than any other popular youth sport. Calling me a denialist based on your phony numbers is not persuasive, and shows that you're the one who needs to check the facts.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:50 AM on October 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
First off, I don't know where you're getting your numbers. The 1.7 million figure for total football participation in the U.S. is way off, as the number just for ages 6-14 in Pop Warner was 2.8 million last year (though that's a sharp decline from previous years.) Meanwhile, the numbers for youth soccer, which actually covers a much larger age group (5-19) than Pop Warner, were actually around 3 million in 2012, and since ~half of those are girls, I don't think it's fair to compare the total soccer numbers to football's boys only numbers. Also, the 13 million number for soccer you're citing seems to come from U.S. census data for people (children and adults) who self-report that they play soccer at least once per year. You're clearly a very smart guy who knows a lot about sports, so seeing you compare apples and oranges here (and the wrong apples and oranges at that!) is very surprising.
Furthermore, the fact that up to 1/5 of soccer injuries are head injuries says nothing about the overall incidence compared to football, and contrary to your assertions, the best available data shows (p. 16) that football players get injured more (3.78 per 1,000 vs. soccer's 1.64 per 1,000), have more total injuries (559k vs 172k, or if you want to lump girls in, 559k vs 394k), and more total incidence of concussion (p. 26 vs. pp. 35, 43, 131k for football vs 39k for boys' soccer and 53k for girls' soccer.)
I mean, look, I agree with your overall point that people underestimate the risk of playing other sports, and we should certainly talk about the racial / geographical dynamic, but it's an unassailable fact that football causes more injuries in general and more concussions in particular than any other popular youth sport. Calling me a denialist based on your phony numbers is not persuasive, and shows that you're the one who needs to check the facts.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:50 AM on October 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
rtha: Are you saying that football players don't really have a choice whether to play or not, because football is so popular? Huh. Still seems a bit paternalistic.
No. Pointing out that comparing the cultural and economic space occupied by football to that of hang-gliding is not that. Talk about denial. You're so defensive on this subject that you pulled out a union card as an argument. I give up. Good luck to you and your sport.
posted by rtha at 8:05 AM on October 15, 2014
No. Pointing out that comparing the cultural and economic space occupied by football to that of hang-gliding is not that. Talk about denial. You're so defensive on this subject that you pulled out a union card as an argument. I give up. Good luck to you and your sport.
posted by rtha at 8:05 AM on October 15, 2014
p.s. I have also carried a union card and have also been on the contract negotiating team once upon a time. So, you know, cred!
posted by rtha at 8:07 AM on October 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by rtha at 8:07 AM on October 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
rtha: I brought up the union thing because I was personally attacked for having "hard-right, unquestioningly pro-management labor politics in sports discussions" by RogerB, who defined this entire issue as "an issue of labor politics." I'm glad you're on the union side, too. (Apparently RogerB isn't.)
Any reason you don't see the NFLPA as a valid representative of those workers?
posted by msalt at 11:18 AM on October 15, 2014
Any reason you don't see the NFLPA as a valid representative of those workers?
posted by msalt at 11:18 AM on October 15, 2014
I'm glad you're on the union side, too. (Apparently RogerB isn't.)
ha yeah, you got me. totally hiding my antiunionism from your scathing critique, not at all laughing quietly about your incoherent flailing to take on all comers about how somehow the NFL is a super-progressive, worker-friendly organization and is only being unfairly scapegoated because poor people like it. also not at all regretting taking the time to respond seriously to you before (or now for that matter), because a serious discussion is so clearly what you're looking for here
posted by RogerB at 11:27 AM on October 15, 2014
ha yeah, you got me. totally hiding my antiunionism from your scathing critique, not at all laughing quietly about your incoherent flailing to take on all comers about how somehow the NFL is a super-progressive, worker-friendly organization and is only being unfairly scapegoated because poor people like it. also not at all regretting taking the time to respond seriously to you before (or now for that matter), because a serious discussion is so clearly what you're looking for here
posted by RogerB at 11:27 AM on October 15, 2014
I'm sorry, RogerB -- I missed the part where you say what union you are in, or apologized for falsely accusing me of hard-right pro-management views, or explain why you're not accepting the NFL Player's Association as a valid union.
posted by msalt at 11:29 AM on October 15, 2014
posted by msalt at 11:29 AM on October 15, 2014
tonycpsu: I got my figures from Wikipedia. Not optimal, I know, don't have all day, but I'm not cherry picking or anything like that. My figures were for all ages.
Your numbers look kind of funky too though (aside from dismissing all injuries to girls, which I have a lot of trouble with.) Your article says that Pop Warner is the largest in the nation at 225,000 players; so how did they get the total of 2.8 million youth participating? Are they counting playground touch football games, or high school (since the range went up to 14)?
Also, your injury numbers are old (2011-2), and the whole point of the three later studies I listed was that people were underestimating the CTE effect of soccer -- for reasons that Eyebrows McGee notes --and that repeated sub-concussion contact has damaging effects.
But here's the bottom line: we can argue about precise numbers all day, but there are CTE risks from a ton of sports that no one here has any problems with (which by coincidence are more common among other white, middle class people). I would love for the NFL and the player's union to do more to cut CTE -- Washington in particular should be addressed because they seem to lead with their helmets as a strategy -- and I hope they will.
But unless people here want to ban all competitiive sports that involve contact, there is no valid reason to single out football on the basis of head trauma.
posted by msalt at 11:36 AM on October 15, 2014
Your numbers look kind of funky too though (aside from dismissing all injuries to girls, which I have a lot of trouble with.) Your article says that Pop Warner is the largest in the nation at 225,000 players; so how did they get the total of 2.8 million youth participating? Are they counting playground touch football games, or high school (since the range went up to 14)?
Also, your injury numbers are old (2011-2), and the whole point of the three later studies I listed was that people were underestimating the CTE effect of soccer -- for reasons that Eyebrows McGee notes --and that repeated sub-concussion contact has damaging effects.
But here's the bottom line: we can argue about precise numbers all day, but there are CTE risks from a ton of sports that no one here has any problems with (which by coincidence are more common among other white, middle class people). I would love for the NFL and the player's union to do more to cut CTE -- Washington in particular should be addressed because they seem to lead with their helmets as a strategy -- and I hope they will.
But unless people here want to ban all competitiive sports that involve contact, there is no valid reason to single out football on the basis of head trauma.
posted by msalt at 11:36 AM on October 15, 2014
msalt: Your numbers look kind of funky too though
No, one of my numbers (the 2.8 million youth football participation rate) has a problem similar in kind (but not degree) as your 13 million number for the entire U.S. population.
aside from dismissing all injuries to girls
Don't be ridiculous. I'm not dismissing them, I'm saying that you can't add up boys and girls soccer and compare it to boys' football with absolute numbers.
Also, your injury numbers are old (2011-2), and the whole point of the three later studies I listed was that people were underestimating the CTE effect of soccer -- for reasons that Eyebrows McGee notes --and that repeated sub-concussion contact has damaging effects.
And football indisputably has more sub-concussion contact than soccer. So even if the studies you linked to are accurate, they only show that it's also a problem in soccer (which nobody is disputing) and that it's even worse in football than we now realize.
but there are CTE risks from a ton of sports that no one here has any problems with (which by coincidence are more common among other white, middle class people).
There are also risks from me driving to work every day, but I do it. The data I cited, which is not by any means ancient, and is not undermined by the fact that head trauma also occasionally happens in soccer -- shows that it's much more of a problem in football. This is about risk mitigation. People are "singling out" football because it's the tip of the spear, and perhaps could benefit from safety improvements that would make it not the most dangerous sport, but on par with soccer, lacrosse, and your other examples.
I'm a football fan, and I have no kids, so I have no dog in this fight other than enjoying the sport, wanting it to continue to exist, and being frankly tired of your tendentious assertions that the focus on football is coming from a race/class-motivated perspective.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:01 PM on October 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
No, one of my numbers (the 2.8 million youth football participation rate) has a problem similar in kind (but not degree) as your 13 million number for the entire U.S. population.
aside from dismissing all injuries to girls
Don't be ridiculous. I'm not dismissing them, I'm saying that you can't add up boys and girls soccer and compare it to boys' football with absolute numbers.
Also, your injury numbers are old (2011-2), and the whole point of the three later studies I listed was that people were underestimating the CTE effect of soccer -- for reasons that Eyebrows McGee notes --and that repeated sub-concussion contact has damaging effects.
And football indisputably has more sub-concussion contact than soccer. So even if the studies you linked to are accurate, they only show that it's also a problem in soccer (which nobody is disputing) and that it's even worse in football than we now realize.
but there are CTE risks from a ton of sports that no one here has any problems with (which by coincidence are more common among other white, middle class people).
There are also risks from me driving to work every day, but I do it. The data I cited, which is not by any means ancient, and is not undermined by the fact that head trauma also occasionally happens in soccer -- shows that it's much more of a problem in football. This is about risk mitigation. People are "singling out" football because it's the tip of the spear, and perhaps could benefit from safety improvements that would make it not the most dangerous sport, but on par with soccer, lacrosse, and your other examples.
I'm a football fan, and I have no kids, so I have no dog in this fight other than enjoying the sport, wanting it to continue to exist, and being frankly tired of your tendentious assertions that the focus on football is coming from a race/class-motivated perspective.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:01 PM on October 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
I don't think it's a fair condensation of this topic to say that people are mostly hoping that football makes changes to reduce CTE. The overwhelming sentiment here is that football is "unacceptable for humanitarian reasons, like boxing" and/or part of "toxic masculinity." One person even used the phrase "like all right-thinking people" without apparent irony.
Reducing CTE, great. I think we all agree. I don't think a single person mentioned CTE in any other sport before I did, though. rtha's hung up on 1 of my 12 examples, hang-gliding, which has a death rate of 1 per 1000 participants per year.
Football is different from the other sports why, then? I do think race and class are big factors. Several people mentioned the sport's success as a mark against it. There are other reasons, too. Football is the favorite sport of a lot of groups not well represented on Metafilter: Southerners, the less educated, older folks, non-urbanites, cultural and political conservatives, etc.
I should be clear that I think all of these differences from the football crowd are a factor here, in addition to race and class differences. But none are really good reasons to disparage football fans or say that the sport shouldn't be allowed.
posted by msalt at 12:38 PM on October 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
Reducing CTE, great. I think we all agree. I don't think a single person mentioned CTE in any other sport before I did, though. rtha's hung up on 1 of my 12 examples, hang-gliding, which has a death rate of 1 per 1000 participants per year.
Football is different from the other sports why, then? I do think race and class are big factors. Several people mentioned the sport's success as a mark against it. There are other reasons, too. Football is the favorite sport of a lot of groups not well represented on Metafilter: Southerners, the less educated, older folks, non-urbanites, cultural and political conservatives, etc.
I should be clear that I think all of these differences from the football crowd are a factor here, in addition to race and class differences. But none are really good reasons to disparage football fans or say that the sport shouldn't be allowed.
posted by msalt at 12:38 PM on October 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
msalt: Football is different from the other sports why, then?
As I said, because there are more instances of forceful contact. Boxing has this problem as well,as do UFC and the like. I read most of those comments as people talking about football as it exists today, with the higher incidence of concussion and repeated blunt trauma than other team sports, not football in general. I assume if football's numbers were closer to soccer's or volleyball's, the comments would be much different.
Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe you're on to something, but your numbers don't make that case at all. People are logically consistent when they say start with football, because it's the biggest bang-for-the-buck. Boxing's rough, but has much lower participation. Soccer has high participation, but it's statistically safer. etc.
It's all about cost/benefit, and as someone who enjoys the sport, and devoted much energy across several threads throughout the Sandusky/Paterno aftermath period trying to explain that there's nothing inherently wrong about football in and of itself, I can assure you I'm not speaking from a "nuke the sport from orbit" perspective here. But don't pretend it's not much more violent sport by engaging in frivolous statistical comparisons and vague allusions to studies that would only show that both football and other sports have additional risks we're not cognizant of, and don't assume without evidence that this is coming from a "MeFi hates football" perspective. I've seen that perspective, but from what I can see here, people posting in this thread genuinely care about safety, and if the sport could be made safer, would be okay with it.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:47 PM on October 15, 2014 [2 favorites]
As I said, because there are more instances of forceful contact. Boxing has this problem as well,as do UFC and the like. I read most of those comments as people talking about football as it exists today, with the higher incidence of concussion and repeated blunt trauma than other team sports, not football in general. I assume if football's numbers were closer to soccer's or volleyball's, the comments would be much different.
Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe you're on to something, but your numbers don't make that case at all. People are logically consistent when they say start with football, because it's the biggest bang-for-the-buck. Boxing's rough, but has much lower participation. Soccer has high participation, but it's statistically safer. etc.
It's all about cost/benefit, and as someone who enjoys the sport, and devoted much energy across several threads throughout the Sandusky/Paterno aftermath period trying to explain that there's nothing inherently wrong about football in and of itself, I can assure you I'm not speaking from a "nuke the sport from orbit" perspective here. But don't pretend it's not much more violent sport by engaging in frivolous statistical comparisons and vague allusions to studies that would only show that both football and other sports have additional risks we're not cognizant of, and don't assume without evidence that this is coming from a "MeFi hates football" perspective. I've seen that perspective, but from what I can see here, people posting in this thread genuinely care about safety, and if the sport could be made safer, would be okay with it.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:47 PM on October 15, 2014 [2 favorites]
(Actually, I'd exempt the "right-thinking" people comment from my defense here -- that's pretty shitty.)
posted by tonycpsu at 12:52 PM on October 15, 2014
posted by tonycpsu at 12:52 PM on October 15, 2014
Football is the favorite sport of a lot of groups not well represented on Metafilter: Southerners, the less educated, older folks, non-urbanites, cultural and political conservatives, etc.
Football is an overwhelmingly popular sport among many demographics at the moment. Southerners and the poor don't have any monopoly on that obsession. And there are lots of non-urbanite Southern Mefites (waves) whose problems with football have nothing to do with curled-lip attitude towards the poors. Most of us have relatives who played. Many of us have cheered on our favorite teams, and enjoyed a good game.
And your point is well-spoken that football is not unique, msalt. Certainly corruption, doping, and cheating scandals (as well as injuries to players, rioting, etc.) are a problem for all big-enough sports to one degree or another. Football is the dominant one in America, so that's the one we talk about. It sucks up so much money and so many resources, and affects so many lives, that considering its value and the possible harms it can cause are perfectly valid questions to ask.
Surely we all bring our own racial and class issues with us, but in this case, I don't think that most people are wanting to take anything away. What I personally would like is to create enough other opportunities for kids that things like professional sports or the military don't become last-chance shots at getting out of poverty, worth any risk. I want people who play a dangerous sport to be in a stronger bargaining position, in order to force change to happen. Desperate kids can't bargain very well, and they are easier to manipulate and coerce. Not because they're dumb, but because there aren't enough alternatives out there. Seeing a person in a disadvantaged position being abused and advocating for it to stop is not disrespectful.
posted by emjaybee at 2:33 PM on October 15, 2014 [5 favorites]
Football is an overwhelmingly popular sport among many demographics at the moment. Southerners and the poor don't have any monopoly on that obsession. And there are lots of non-urbanite Southern Mefites (waves) whose problems with football have nothing to do with curled-lip attitude towards the poors. Most of us have relatives who played. Many of us have cheered on our favorite teams, and enjoyed a good game.
And your point is well-spoken that football is not unique, msalt. Certainly corruption, doping, and cheating scandals (as well as injuries to players, rioting, etc.) are a problem for all big-enough sports to one degree or another. Football is the dominant one in America, so that's the one we talk about. It sucks up so much money and so many resources, and affects so many lives, that considering its value and the possible harms it can cause are perfectly valid questions to ask.
Surely we all bring our own racial and class issues with us, but in this case, I don't think that most people are wanting to take anything away. What I personally would like is to create enough other opportunities for kids that things like professional sports or the military don't become last-chance shots at getting out of poverty, worth any risk. I want people who play a dangerous sport to be in a stronger bargaining position, in order to force change to happen. Desperate kids can't bargain very well, and they are easier to manipulate and coerce. Not because they're dumb, but because there aren't enough alternatives out there. Seeing a person in a disadvantaged position being abused and advocating for it to stop is not disrespectful.
posted by emjaybee at 2:33 PM on October 15, 2014 [5 favorites]
Well put, and I'm in complete agreement. There is another, deeper discussion that somewhat goes to the issue of class, I think. Is valor, toughness, aggression, "manliness" if you will, acceptable as a goal? Is it wrong as entertainment?
I think that danger IS a part of football, and it's not honest to pretend otherwise. Hopefully, permanent damage especially CTE can be minimized or eliminated, but the fact that a quarterback is narrowly escaping hard hits is part of the inherent drama. It's also fun to roughhouse and tackle people, though some injuries will definitely result. The reason flag football is not a realistic alternative is the same reason that playing poker for match heads or free chips isn't as fun. The stakes simply aren't there.
I think it's fine for people to value that kind of toughness (common to most sports, except tennis, swimming, chess, and track I guess) and fine for them to watch it. Also fine if you don't want to, but I think it's dangerous to imagine yourself better for that choice, and that's what's bugging me here. Some might consider that barbaric but bravery is exciting and (I'd argue as a Taoist) part of reality that can't be willed out of existence.
posted by msalt at 3:04 PM on October 15, 2014
I think that danger IS a part of football, and it's not honest to pretend otherwise. Hopefully, permanent damage especially CTE can be minimized or eliminated, but the fact that a quarterback is narrowly escaping hard hits is part of the inherent drama. It's also fun to roughhouse and tackle people, though some injuries will definitely result. The reason flag football is not a realistic alternative is the same reason that playing poker for match heads or free chips isn't as fun. The stakes simply aren't there.
I think it's fine for people to value that kind of toughness (common to most sports, except tennis, swimming, chess, and track I guess) and fine for them to watch it. Also fine if you don't want to, but I think it's dangerous to imagine yourself better for that choice, and that's what's bugging me here. Some might consider that barbaric but bravery is exciting and (I'd argue as a Taoist) part of reality that can't be willed out of existence.
posted by msalt at 3:04 PM on October 15, 2014
frankly tired of your tendentious assertions that the focus on football is coming from a race/class-motivated perspective
Look at my posting history. Do I seem like a right-wing reactionary? I mean, really for really reals? There are sometimes GIGANTIC BLIND SPOTS we all have in our political world view, and believe me, NFL-is-Evil is now, sadly, totally a plank in the progressive platform. We try to find excuses to believe it, we quote extremely poorly reported stories as "proof" of our own biases, and man. This is tough for me, as I do know I have my own GOOD vs. EVIL blind spots (ask me about mainstream rap vs. backpacker rap sometime.) Even so...
The focus on football is coming from a race/class-motivated perspective. It really is.
The FiveThirtyEight follow-up piece mentioned above is case in point. NFL players are less than half as likely to engage in domestic violence as other men of their age and income... and this is indicative of a problem in the author's mind. I'm flabbergasted. I'm in a take-on-all-comers mode, but I bowed out, as explaining the incredible racism of holding young, mostly minority men to an impossible standard would take up too much of my day.
Blind spots, folks. We all got 'em.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:15 PM on October 15, 2014 [2 favorites]
Look at my posting history. Do I seem like a right-wing reactionary? I mean, really for really reals? There are sometimes GIGANTIC BLIND SPOTS we all have in our political world view, and believe me, NFL-is-Evil is now, sadly, totally a plank in the progressive platform. We try to find excuses to believe it, we quote extremely poorly reported stories as "proof" of our own biases, and man. This is tough for me, as I do know I have my own GOOD vs. EVIL blind spots (ask me about mainstream rap vs. backpacker rap sometime.) Even so...
The focus on football is coming from a race/class-motivated perspective. It really is.
The FiveThirtyEight follow-up piece mentioned above is case in point. NFL players are less than half as likely to engage in domestic violence as other men of their age and income... and this is indicative of a problem in the author's mind. I'm flabbergasted. I'm in a take-on-all-comers mode, but I bowed out, as explaining the incredible racism of holding young, mostly minority men to an impossible standard would take up too much of my day.
Blind spots, folks. We all got 'em.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:15 PM on October 15, 2014 [2 favorites]
Slap*Happy: The focus on football is coming from a race/class-motivated perspective. It really is.
So the fact that the safety stats show it actually is more dangerous does nothing to undermine that?
Look, surely there are people piling on football who simply aren't sports people, but I'm a sports fanatic who's running one of the MeFi fantasy football leagues, and even I can see plain as day that football really is hurting people. I can also acknowledge that soccer, lacrosse, and other sports are also dangerous, but none of them is as dangerous as my beloved American football.
Of course class and race factor into all of our perspectives on everything, but the implication that it's primarily class/race based is one I really don't see a lot of evidence for here. In some of those links? Sure. In this thread? Just not seeing it.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:34 PM on October 15, 2014 [4 favorites]
So the fact that the safety stats show it actually is more dangerous does nothing to undermine that?
Look, surely there are people piling on football who simply aren't sports people, but I'm a sports fanatic who's running one of the MeFi fantasy football leagues, and even I can see plain as day that football really is hurting people. I can also acknowledge that soccer, lacrosse, and other sports are also dangerous, but none of them is as dangerous as my beloved American football.
Of course class and race factor into all of our perspectives on everything, but the implication that it's primarily class/race based is one I really don't see a lot of evidence for here. In some of those links? Sure. In this thread? Just not seeing it.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:34 PM on October 15, 2014 [4 favorites]
I think the fact that people earnestly suggest flag football, fencing and Quidditch as football alternatives is strong evidence of a class-based blind spot. Not by you, mind you, there are a lot of different voices here.
As for injury risk, there are strong reasons soccer may be worse than apparent, which Eyebrows did a good job elucidating, but hockey, lacrosse, hang-gliding, skateboarding, and for god's sake rodeo are all very high CTE risks, and I don't think it's at all given that football is necessarily worse. There are helmets, special rules, and now even a carefully delineated concussion protocol to follow where one is suspected.
I don't think those protocols are always followed, but the progress is there, along with rule changes, etc. What has soccer done? Nothing, and it's been at least 3 years since people became aware of the risks of headers.
posted by msalt at 2:20 AM on October 16, 2014
As for injury risk, there are strong reasons soccer may be worse than apparent, which Eyebrows did a good job elucidating, but hockey, lacrosse, hang-gliding, skateboarding, and for god's sake rodeo are all very high CTE risks, and I don't think it's at all given that football is necessarily worse. There are helmets, special rules, and now even a carefully delineated concussion protocol to follow where one is suspected.
I don't think those protocols are always followed, but the progress is there, along with rule changes, etc. What has soccer done? Nothing, and it's been at least 3 years since people became aware of the risks of headers.
posted by msalt at 2:20 AM on October 16, 2014
msalt:
posted by charred husk at 6:40 AM on October 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
QuidditchOh for f's sake, I didn't say Quidditch was any sort of alternative. I was explaining how I no longer had any interaction or influence with football programs aside from watching the NFL. My wife works at a inner city school for the arts so they don't have sports teams but they recently formed a Quidditch club.
posted by charred husk at 6:40 AM on October 16, 2014 [2 favorites]
msalt, you're just way too intelligent a person to not understand the simple math:
(severe injury rate * number of participants)
behind why hockey, lacrosse, hang-gliding, skateboarding, and rodeo aren't as harmful, so I don't know why you keep bringing up these more niche sports. Obviously, if there were easy, low-hanging fruit things that could be done to make these safer, we should avail ourselves of them, but come on, your focus on the number of kids who play soccer shows you clearly understand that the popularity of the sport is a factor, but then you bring up rodeo?
Also, assuming you were talking about ice hockey, the fact is that there are rules at the lower levels and all the way through juniors and college to make things safer than the NHL game, and even the NHL has instituted the hybrid icing rule to cut down on injuries crashing into the boards. (They still allow fighting, which is bullshit, but, again, fighting is prohibited at lower levels, and, again, ice hockey is still a niche sport that doesn't even belong in the same conversation in terms of youth participation.)
The point is, yes, where possible, we ought to make those sports safer, but it's silly to keep clinging to the idea that football isn't worse when factoring in how many people play it and how clearly the stats show that concussion rates are worse. The presence of helmets and pads don't change that.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:53 AM on October 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
(severe injury rate * number of participants)
behind why hockey, lacrosse, hang-gliding, skateboarding, and rodeo aren't as harmful, so I don't know why you keep bringing up these more niche sports. Obviously, if there were easy, low-hanging fruit things that could be done to make these safer, we should avail ourselves of them, but come on, your focus on the number of kids who play soccer shows you clearly understand that the popularity of the sport is a factor, but then you bring up rodeo?
Also, assuming you were talking about ice hockey, the fact is that there are rules at the lower levels and all the way through juniors and college to make things safer than the NHL game, and even the NHL has instituted the hybrid icing rule to cut down on injuries crashing into the boards. (They still allow fighting, which is bullshit, but, again, fighting is prohibited at lower levels, and, again, ice hockey is still a niche sport that doesn't even belong in the same conversation in terms of youth participation.)
The point is, yes, where possible, we ought to make those sports safer, but it's silly to keep clinging to the idea that football isn't worse when factoring in how many people play it and how clearly the stats show that concussion rates are worse. The presence of helmets and pads don't change that.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:53 AM on October 16, 2014 [1 favorite]
charred husk: I didn't mean to imply that you said Quidditch was an alternative to football, and I know it probably came off that way. The fact is though that in real life it IS the alternative to football at that art-focused school. Fun for them, but IMHO it reflects a very narrow class perspective which is not unusual for an arts school.
posted by msalt at 10:27 AM on October 17, 2014
posted by msalt at 10:27 AM on October 17, 2014
tonycpsu: Thanks for the compliment.
I think there are two separate issues here. One is, which sport causes the most overall damage? This is clearly a function of the number playing times risk. But with both soccer and football, in some ways it seems unfair to hold a sport's popularity against it. I think we all agree that everyone should exercise, and if millions enjoy a sport that's a good thing. The answer then is changing rules or finding gear to minimize the risk.
The second issue, and the one I see more people making here, is a moral issue. IE, is it wrong to watch and pay people to play a damaging sport? Is football so inherently damaging that we shouldn't let kids play, or let anyone play, or participate by watching? (Several people here seem to think so. Boxing is mentioned as a comparison.)
If that's the argument, then the greater damage of MMA, rodeo and hang-gliding is exactly the point. I mean, 1/1000 active hang-gliders dying every year is an astonishing figure, but no one is suggesting there's anything wrong with hang-gliding. Why should people be allowed to take on that risk, but not in football?
I spend a fair amount of time in small towns in the Western US, and rodeo is a very big deal, and a lot of guys are living with serious injuries they picked up in their teens and twenties. The LA Times says rodeo is 10 times more injurious than football. People don't participate for as long precisely because they get hurt so frequently. But they are also starting out kids at 3 years old riding sheep!
posted by msalt at 11:03 AM on October 17, 2014
I think there are two separate issues here. One is, which sport causes the most overall damage? This is clearly a function of the number playing times risk. But with both soccer and football, in some ways it seems unfair to hold a sport's popularity against it. I think we all agree that everyone should exercise, and if millions enjoy a sport that's a good thing. The answer then is changing rules or finding gear to minimize the risk.
The second issue, and the one I see more people making here, is a moral issue. IE, is it wrong to watch and pay people to play a damaging sport? Is football so inherently damaging that we shouldn't let kids play, or let anyone play, or participate by watching? (Several people here seem to think so. Boxing is mentioned as a comparison.)
If that's the argument, then the greater damage of MMA, rodeo and hang-gliding is exactly the point. I mean, 1/1000 active hang-gliders dying every year is an astonishing figure, but no one is suggesting there's anything wrong with hang-gliding. Why should people be allowed to take on that risk, but not in football?
I spend a fair amount of time in small towns in the Western US, and rodeo is a very big deal, and a lot of guys are living with serious injuries they picked up in their teens and twenties. The LA Times says rodeo is 10 times more injurious than football. People don't participate for as long precisely because they get hurt so frequently. But they are also starting out kids at 3 years old riding sheep!
posted by msalt at 11:03 AM on October 17, 2014
If that's the argument, then the greater damage of MMA, rodeo and hang-gliding is exactly the point.
This reads like an attempt to distract. None of the above are anywhere nearly as popular (in viewers or participants) as American Football.
Also, none except rodeo has a youth component, and Mutton Busting justifies its dangers in terms of football injuries.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:15 PM on October 17, 2014
This reads like an attempt to distract. None of the above are anywhere nearly as popular (in viewers or participants) as American Football.
Also, none except rodeo has a youth component, and Mutton Busting justifies its dangers in terms of football injuries.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 12:15 PM on October 17, 2014
An attempt to distract from what? As I said, there are two separate issues; 1) total damage caused by injuries suffered in a given sport, which is largely a function of popularity, and 2) whether some sports are so dangerous that they are unacceptable.
If you're talking about kids in sports, there are lots of extra restrictions on kids in football too. Are there 3 year olds in football leagues? I haven't heard of that. Martial arts has a MASSIVE youth presence, probably 95% of people in martial arts are kids. MMA competitions start later but we haven't even talked about injuries in various dojos.
Here is the bit about football from your article. I don't think it makes your point very effectively:
“It’s probably just like in the cities,” Ms. [Amy] Wilson [37] said. “Just like a kid going out for basketball and getting hurt playing basketball, or going out for football and getting hurt playing football.” Even though her son Tipton, 7, broke an ankle at age 5 when a bolting sheep left him hanging from a gate by one leg when he was practicing at home, he still competes frequently."
posted by msalt at 12:36 PM on October 17, 2014
If you're talking about kids in sports, there are lots of extra restrictions on kids in football too. Are there 3 year olds in football leagues? I haven't heard of that. Martial arts has a MASSIVE youth presence, probably 95% of people in martial arts are kids. MMA competitions start later but we haven't even talked about injuries in various dojos.
Here is the bit about football from your article. I don't think it makes your point very effectively:
“It’s probably just like in the cities,” Ms. [Amy] Wilson [37] said. “Just like a kid going out for basketball and getting hurt playing basketball, or going out for football and getting hurt playing football.” Even though her son Tipton, 7, broke an ankle at age 5 when a bolting sheep left him hanging from a gate by one leg when he was practicing at home, he still competes frequently."
posted by msalt at 12:36 PM on October 17, 2014
msalt:
msalt:
I know there are some others who are against the violent nature of the game itself but I think that's an entirely different question that includes efforts to reduce the violent nature of our culture as a whole. Its not something I've thought too hard about and would rather not get into now, but it's likely that there won't be a satisfactory compromise with this viewpoint.
I get where you're coming from about the question of violence being a class issue but I'm not sure I buy it. The idea of "valor, toughness, aggression, "manliness" if you will, acceptable as a goal" is culture-wide and is probably seen as a problem from certain feminist perspectives. Of course feminism has its problems with class but I'm not sure its critiques are something that should be tossed out as classist. As to whether this culture is a good thing or bad is a different argument.
Personally, I saw the results of a "warrior culture" from the football team at my own high school back in the day and there was lots of sexual assault and bullying that came along with it. I also saw my step-father clean up the good ol' boy system that supported that culture and instituted his own culture of valor, toughness and aggression (limited to the field or mat) with an emphasis on respecting yourself and others. It takes a lot of work and it is possible, but that sort of culture can be incredibly damaging if left unchecked.
Slap*Happy I think comes closer to making the right point about where the classism/racism might be coming in recently. If the argument is that football encourages players to be violent thugs then yeah, there's probably some classism/racism going on there (even if it's the ingrained cultural kind and not the hood-wearing obvious kind). However, I only have issues with the NFL offices covering shit up in these instances. The question for me then becomes kind of like MRA stuff - even if I'm not in support of the horrible shit, am I complicit by being on the same general side (walking away from football)? I may not really be on either side, who knows.
On a final note, since I'm taking over an hour to write this damn overlong comment anyways, there's the question of watching people get hurt for my amusement. I've played football and known lots of people who have played. On the whole people play because they love the game, rough hits and all. There is also the aspect of poor kids trying to lift themselves out of poverty due to their limited life choices and this can be read as me paying them to hurt themselves just so they can make it. However I'm not a big one for restricting people from doing what they love if it isn't too damaging and balancing that against the class issue is tough. The only answer, for me, is to walk away until the game, somehow, becomes safe enough to watch with a good conscience. That may not be possible. It may be impossible to tell if my "conditions" are met. All I know for now is that all the exhilaration I'm feeling from watching a game comes crashing down worse than it ever has in the past when someone is carried off the field. Other people may have different feelings on the matter and that's fine - it's a personal choice.
Apparently I've got a lot of feelings about football.
posted by charred husk at 1:02 PM on October 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
Fun for them, but IMHO it reflects a very narrow class perspective which is not unusual for an arts school.It's an art school so there just aren't any sports programs - it's not big enough. The Quidditch "team" is a club, like the anime and hip-hop clubs. I think it may have even disbanded after the initial set of enthusiasts graduated. The school is also inner city - over 60% of the kids are on free or reduced lunches. Not exactly the highest of rates but certainly well above what you'd get in the suburbs. But that's all said in trying to protect a minor point of honor for on my part.
msalt:
One is, which sport causes the most overall damage? This is clearly a function of the number playing times risk. But with both soccer and football, in some ways it seems unfair to hold a sport's popularity against it. I think we all agree that everyone should exercise, and if millions enjoy a sport that's a good thing. The answer then is changing rules or finding gear to minimize the risk.I don't think "unfair" is the right word to use when considering a sport's popularity in this context. We ask questions and and try to change parts of our culture for the better all the time. Football is a big part of our culture and it isn't wrong to be asking questions about the role it plays. In some cases we get answers that we don't like (Washington's team name not changing, dithering on the NFL's part about concussions, cover-ups) and we take the actions that we can. If the rules or gear was changed suitably then that would probably be enough for me though I might still have reservations about other issues that I'd have to consider (Washington, cover-ups, etc.) Hopefully the changes for safety would be part of an overall change in culture in the NFL offices. I don't even know if suitable changes are possible.
I know there are some others who are against the violent nature of the game itself but I think that's an entirely different question that includes efforts to reduce the violent nature of our culture as a whole. Its not something I've thought too hard about and would rather not get into now, but it's likely that there won't be a satisfactory compromise with this viewpoint.
I get where you're coming from about the question of violence being a class issue but I'm not sure I buy it. The idea of "valor, toughness, aggression, "manliness" if you will, acceptable as a goal" is culture-wide and is probably seen as a problem from certain feminist perspectives. Of course feminism has its problems with class but I'm not sure its critiques are something that should be tossed out as classist. As to whether this culture is a good thing or bad is a different argument.
Personally, I saw the results of a "warrior culture" from the football team at my own high school back in the day and there was lots of sexual assault and bullying that came along with it. I also saw my step-father clean up the good ol' boy system that supported that culture and instituted his own culture of valor, toughness and aggression (limited to the field or mat) with an emphasis on respecting yourself and others. It takes a lot of work and it is possible, but that sort of culture can be incredibly damaging if left unchecked.
Slap*Happy I think comes closer to making the right point about where the classism/racism might be coming in recently. If the argument is that football encourages players to be violent thugs then yeah, there's probably some classism/racism going on there (even if it's the ingrained cultural kind and not the hood-wearing obvious kind). However, I only have issues with the NFL offices covering shit up in these instances. The question for me then becomes kind of like MRA stuff - even if I'm not in support of the horrible shit, am I complicit by being on the same general side (walking away from football)? I may not really be on either side, who knows.
On a final note, since I'm taking over an hour to write this damn overlong comment anyways, there's the question of watching people get hurt for my amusement. I've played football and known lots of people who have played. On the whole people play because they love the game, rough hits and all. There is also the aspect of poor kids trying to lift themselves out of poverty due to their limited life choices and this can be read as me paying them to hurt themselves just so they can make it. However I'm not a big one for restricting people from doing what they love if it isn't too damaging and balancing that against the class issue is tough. The only answer, for me, is to walk away until the game, somehow, becomes safe enough to watch with a good conscience. That may not be possible. It may be impossible to tell if my "conditions" are met. All I know for now is that all the exhilaration I'm feeling from watching a game comes crashing down worse than it ever has in the past when someone is carried off the field. Other people may have different feelings on the matter and that's fine - it's a personal choice.
Apparently I've got a lot of feelings about football.
posted by charred husk at 1:02 PM on October 17, 2014 [2 favorites]
Wow, lot of good and powerful stuff there, thanks. And I'll drop the Quidditch point, sorry about that. (I stand by fencing and flag football though.)
I agree 100% about the shittiness of the NFL as an organization, their need to clean up and the constant need to police against privilege, bullying and abuses by successful tough-aggressive-macho people in society. (Obviously this applies to police and military as well as football players and other athletes, and really to businessmen too.)
Good on your step-father for fighting the good fight, too. One thing we haven't mentioned in this topic is that football is the most group-oriented of sports. There are a lot of good lessons about cooperation and submerging ego for the team that I think are less true in other sports and really even in most other high-school activities.
I write about Chip Kelly, the coach of the Eagles, who is pushing the group dynamic very hard (to the point of cutting his second biggest star DeSean Jackson mostly for being a diva and not cooperating. So I think it can be done right.
posted by msalt at 2:20 PM on October 17, 2014
I agree 100% about the shittiness of the NFL as an organization, their need to clean up and the constant need to police against privilege, bullying and abuses by successful tough-aggressive-macho people in society. (Obviously this applies to police and military as well as football players and other athletes, and really to businessmen too.)
Good on your step-father for fighting the good fight, too. One thing we haven't mentioned in this topic is that football is the most group-oriented of sports. There are a lot of good lessons about cooperation and submerging ego for the team that I think are less true in other sports and really even in most other high-school activities.
I write about Chip Kelly, the coach of the Eagles, who is pushing the group dynamic very hard (to the point of cutting his second biggest star DeSean Jackson mostly for being a diva and not cooperating. So I think it can be done right.
posted by msalt at 2:20 PM on October 17, 2014
Fencing doesn't belong in this conversation; not because of class issues or anything like that. It doesn't belong because it's not a team sport. Flag football, soccer, even Quidditch are team games. Also, unlike the rest that are just games, fencing started as training for actual swordsmanship. Fencing is one on one - you have no one to fall back on or hide behind. You win or lose totally on your own merits and ability with the weapon in your hand. It's a totally different mindset than a team game, where you'll have a lot of players that are just happy to be on a winning team.
posted by COD at 8:49 PM on October 17, 2014
posted by COD at 8:49 PM on October 17, 2014
I've lived in places where football was privileged in toxic ways, and in places where it didn't matter at all. One of the things that really interests me about where I live now is that it's a second-tier high school sport here - sports heroes come from basketball, football is big and inclusive but not very competitive - but Pop Warner is insanely popular. And it's popular not in the suburban areas where the kids' dads played football, but on the poor side of town. Basketball, being sexier and bigger money, tends to get the toxic masculinity and gangs and drugs and hooliganism. Pop Warner is clean cut guys in their 30s through 60s lecturing little boys on teamwork, courage, responsibility, hard work, respect, and so on. It's overseen by adults, never played just a pickup, and therefore both wholesome and safe. I've talked with some of the moms who send their kids to Pop Warner because I was curious, I always thought that was a "football family" sort of activity. And what I heard over and over was, it's a safe place for my kids, with strong male role models (these are mostly single moms in poverty), who are teaching them positive masculine values, and who care about my kid. And it's a sufficiently and self-evidently macho enough sport that the boys who play don't get hassled for being "weak."
Most of these boys move on to other sports in high school (track, baseball, etc), but the single moms in particular really value their sons having positive male role models in the coaches and an example for their sons of how to be strong and masculine without being destructive or toxic.
That really made me think about Pop Warner in a different way and understand why it's so valued by some families, and why it's so crazy-popular in some parts of town. My kids have plenty of examples of healthy masculinity expressed in diverse ways, but not all kids do, and in my town Pop Warner can help boys learn masculine virtues and strengths in ways that are respected by street culture and therefore help protect those kids from it.
I used to find the mere existence of Pop Warner a little bit like "toddlers and tiaras" but now I definitely see the value the game can have for younger boys.
Football is just so many things, in so many contexts, in the US. It's hard to make sweeping pronouncements because it's just so varied.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:45 PM on October 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
Most of these boys move on to other sports in high school (track, baseball, etc), but the single moms in particular really value their sons having positive male role models in the coaches and an example for their sons of how to be strong and masculine without being destructive or toxic.
That really made me think about Pop Warner in a different way and understand why it's so valued by some families, and why it's so crazy-popular in some parts of town. My kids have plenty of examples of healthy masculinity expressed in diverse ways, but not all kids do, and in my town Pop Warner can help boys learn masculine virtues and strengths in ways that are respected by street culture and therefore help protect those kids from it.
I used to find the mere existence of Pop Warner a little bit like "toddlers and tiaras" but now I definitely see the value the game can have for younger boys.
Football is just so many things, in so many contexts, in the US. It's hard to make sweeping pronouncements because it's just so varied.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:45 PM on October 17, 2014 [4 favorites]
For battered NFL wives, a message from the cops and the league: Keep quiet
[The rep] said she called to ‘check on me.’ … I knew what the call meant. I think every wife knows innately what that call means: ‘Your husband needs this job, and you don’t want to take his dream away now do you?’ I lost more than my dignity. I lost my voice, my self-confidence, my identity. I was just a football player’s wife, collateral damage.posted by rtha at 8:49 AM on October 18, 2014 [1 favorite]
That's messed up stuff, rtha, esp. the part about policy fan-boying the players when called. But the example there is problematic, and not specific to football. It's pretty much true of any abusive husband with a good job:
But she was ultimately afraid to press charges. “I didn’t want the father of my children in jail,” she wrote in an e-mail. “I didn’t want him to lose his job. Bottom line.”
The article then goes on to argue for reducing the NFL's penalties against abusive husbands, so that abused wives won't worry about them losing their jobs. I see what they're saying but that's a tough case to make. Can you imagine the shitstorm if the NFL announced a reduction in penalties tomorrow?
posted by msalt at 2:18 PM on October 18, 2014
But she was ultimately afraid to press charges. “I didn’t want the father of my children in jail,” she wrote in an e-mail. “I didn’t want him to lose his job. Bottom line.”
The article then goes on to argue for reducing the NFL's penalties against abusive husbands, so that abused wives won't worry about them losing their jobs. I see what they're saying but that's a tough case to make. Can you imagine the shitstorm if the NFL announced a reduction in penalties tomorrow?
posted by msalt at 2:18 PM on October 18, 2014
Study: More than 80 percent of football concussions go unreported
posted by tonycpsu at 7:25 PM on October 21, 2014
posted by tonycpsu at 7:25 PM on October 21, 2014
The in-helmet sensors mentioned at the end of that article are, I think, a great direction to go in. Not only would they detect concussions, but they would provide a data set for looking at ways to change the rules to improve safety.
Football (and hockey) actually have the advantage that they can easily incorporate sensors in their existing helmets, as opposed to say soccer or MMA.
posted by msalt at 8:18 PM on October 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
Football (and hockey) actually have the advantage that they can easily incorporate sensors in their existing helmets, as opposed to say soccer or MMA.
posted by msalt at 8:18 PM on October 21, 2014 [1 favorite]
The in-helmet sensors mentioned at the end of that article are, I think, a great direction to go in.
I think of playing football like drinking booze. If you're not old enough to give your informed consent, you're not old enough to play. Flag Football only < 18.
posted by mikelieman at 3:49 AM on October 22, 2014
I think of playing football like drinking booze. If you're not old enough to give your informed consent, you're not old enough to play. Flag Football only < 18.
posted by mikelieman at 3:49 AM on October 22, 2014
My son, who does lighting setup for events on the side when he's not doing concert lighting, was working on a charity fashion show put on by the Steelers every year. I went and looked up the event and noticed that one of the charities is the UPMC SPORTS MEDICINE CONCUSSION PROGRAM which seems damn ingenuous to me. I guess that it's good that they're acknowledging that the issue but it would be better if they stopped causing them in the first place.
posted by octothorpe at 5:17 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 5:17 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
mikelieman: If you're not old enough to give your informed consent, you're not old enough to play.
Which would also mean no contact sports at all for minors, no soccer, hockey, basketball, baseball, karate, lacrosse, rugby, field hockey, or BMX bike riding.
posted by msalt at 7:02 AM on October 22, 2014
Which would also mean no contact sports at all for minors, no soccer, hockey, basketball, baseball, karate, lacrosse, rugby, field hockey, or BMX bike riding.
posted by msalt at 7:02 AM on October 22, 2014
FFS msalt, give it up on the soccer thing.
posted by Artw at 7:22 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Artw at 7:22 AM on October 22, 2014 [2 favorites]
ARGH msalt, you've been threadsitting nearly since this thing started! You are dogged in your attempts to say football is Just Like this host of other things, when it is so clearly NOT. It's been explained to you before that nothing has the intersection of popularity and personal danger that football does, and it's compounded by the fact that people on the other team are directly trying to crash into players with their full force. That is why it needs to be made safer.
The moment someone tries to make any argument to that effect there you are. It's getting tiresome. Can't you let it pass, are you not confident that you've made your point already?
posted by JHarris at 9:07 AM on October 22, 2014 [3 favorites]
The moment someone tries to make any argument to that effect there you are. It's getting tiresome. Can't you let it pass, are you not confident that you've made your point already?
posted by JHarris at 9:07 AM on October 22, 2014 [3 favorites]
No, it's totally logical, guys. Because a particularly heated game of tag could theoretically lead to collisions, we can't talk about restricting a much more dangerous activity without also considering what we'll do about kids playing tag.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:20 AM on October 22, 2014
posted by tonycpsu at 9:20 AM on October 22, 2014
Artw & Jharris: is there some actual principle or logical reason behind your dislike of football? I thought there was, so I actually considered and discussed the ones presented. Such as, concern about CTE, or children under 18 arguably being unable to consent to risks.
Those reasons aren't unique to football, so I'm having trouble understanding why it's unacceptable to follow the logical consequences of those arguments.
If your point is simply, football is bad because it's, um popular and kind of conservative, then don't worry about the rationalizations on consent and CTE because apparently they aren't really the point.
posted by msalt at 12:38 AM on October 23, 2014
Those reasons aren't unique to football, so I'm having trouble understanding why it's unacceptable to follow the logical consequences of those arguments.
If your point is simply, football is bad because it's, um popular and kind of conservative, then don't worry about the rationalizations on consent and CTE because apparently they aren't really the point.
posted by msalt at 12:38 AM on October 23, 2014
Artw & Jharris: is there some actual principle or logical reason behind your dislike of football? I thought there was, so I actually considered and discussed the ones presented. Such as, concern about CTE, or children under 18 arguably being unable to consent to risks.
I see the NFL as evil. They take advantage of everyone they can. Players. Cheerleaders. Fans. Is there a single group they HAVEN'T ripped off? Locals who get to pay for the stadiums. Nope. They get fucked most.
So, since it's in the public interest to put the NFL down like a rabid dog, the fact that Football is inherently risky, AND THERE IS NO WAY TO MITIGATE THOSE RISKS means their 'farm' for players needs to be shut down.
Shut down the supply of kids coming up from high school into college, and they're done.
And we're all better off.
posted by mikelieman at 4:21 AM on October 23, 2014
I see the NFL as evil. They take advantage of everyone they can. Players. Cheerleaders. Fans. Is there a single group they HAVEN'T ripped off? Locals who get to pay for the stadiums. Nope. They get fucked most.
So, since it's in the public interest to put the NFL down like a rabid dog, the fact that Football is inherently risky, AND THERE IS NO WAY TO MITIGATE THOSE RISKS means their 'farm' for players needs to be shut down.
Shut down the supply of kids coming up from high school into college, and they're done.
And we're all better off.
posted by mikelieman at 4:21 AM on October 23, 2014
Artw & Jharris: is there some actual principle or logical reason behind your dislike of football?
Whether I like football or not is irrelevant, you are arguing in bad faith.
posted by JHarris at 5:57 AM on October 23, 2014 [1 favorite]
Whether I like football or not is irrelevant, you are arguing in bad faith.
posted by JHarris at 5:57 AM on October 23, 2014 [1 favorite]
I'm responding politely and logically to reasons presented. Your sense of my "bad faith" seems to be simply that I'm responding. So's tonycpsu, but he agrees with you so no prob.
posted by msalt at 7:17 AM on October 23, 2014
posted by msalt at 7:17 AM on October 23, 2014
You can describe your response any way you like, but you still claimed in passing that I and ArtW "dislike" the game, which is not related in any way to the question of whether professional football is too dangerous to its players. That is not constructive.
posted by JHarris at 7:22 AM on October 23, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 7:22 AM on October 23, 2014 [1 favorite]
Honestly, msalt, you simply must recognize that this:
If your point is simply, football is bad because it's, um popular and kind of conservative
is very poor form at best, and an obvious personal attack if read less charitably. Couching it in the conditional "if your point is..." doesn't in any way negate the impact of it as an aspersion cast on the people you're engaging with, and the implication that people are wearing ideological blinders is particularly suspect coming from someone who covers the sport, regardless of what kind of remuneration (if any) you get for that coverage. I don't doubt that you'd be making the same arguments were you not writing FPP-worthy columns about the NFL, but the fact that you are doing so makes you particularly unsuited to be calling out ideological bias in others.
I love the game of football, and I've even been in a similar position of defending the sport from people who I felt were blaming the sport itself for problems that were caused by specific people and institutions, but you're really embarrassing yourself with this crusade to label anyone who disagrees with you as a racially and politically motivated.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:07 AM on October 23, 2014
If your point is simply, football is bad because it's, um popular and kind of conservative
is very poor form at best, and an obvious personal attack if read less charitably. Couching it in the conditional "if your point is..." doesn't in any way negate the impact of it as an aspersion cast on the people you're engaging with, and the implication that people are wearing ideological blinders is particularly suspect coming from someone who covers the sport, regardless of what kind of remuneration (if any) you get for that coverage. I don't doubt that you'd be making the same arguments were you not writing FPP-worthy columns about the NFL, but the fact that you are doing so makes you particularly unsuited to be calling out ideological bias in others.
I love the game of football, and I've even been in a similar position of defending the sport from people who I felt were blaming the sport itself for problems that were caused by specific people and institutions, but you're really embarrassing yourself with this crusade to label anyone who disagrees with you as a racially and politically motivated.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:07 AM on October 23, 2014
MMQB: Kevin Kolb Battles the Storms, Outside and In
posted by tonycpsu at 11:57 AM on October 23, 2014
posted by tonycpsu at 11:57 AM on October 23, 2014
tonycpsu: OK, I see what you're saying, and I apologize for being that way or coming off that way.
mikelieman brought up a new -- and I think interesting and valid -- point about whether children in sports are able to give consent to risks they incur playing them. Yet when I pointed out that this was not unique to football, jharris and artw tried to shout me down. I reacted defensively, and that was wrong.
posted by msalt at 2:18 PM on October 23, 2014 [1 favorite]
mikelieman brought up a new -- and I think interesting and valid -- point about whether children in sports are able to give consent to risks they incur playing them. Yet when I pointed out that this was not unique to football, jharris and artw tried to shout me down. I reacted defensively, and that was wrong.
posted by msalt at 2:18 PM on October 23, 2014 [1 favorite]
I think they were shouting you down because you've been asked to respond to the argument, made by many including myself that (quoting JHarris) "nothing has the intersection of popularity and personal danger that football does", but all you could come up with is the incredibly lame "in some ways it seems unfair to hold a sport's popularity against it", and a slightly more substantive argument that people need exercise, and football is exercise.
The former point is almost self-refuting, but I'll just point out that heroin is rather popular as well, but most of society doesn't see that as a good thing. If football has negative consequences, and it certainly does (even as it has positive ones, including exercise), then the popularity of the sport is a negative when we're figuring out how to assess the impact of the negative consequences.
You do rightly point out that exercise belongs on the other side of the ledger, but of course it's not like if football went away, all the football players wouldn't be exercising. Perhaps some would reduce the amount they exercise, but without hard polling data or an analysis of multi-sport athletes we probably won't have an easy time assessing how many kids would or wouldn't replace football with some other activity.
So I share in Artw and JHarris' frustration that you keep going back to soccer and BMX biking and other sports that don't come close to football in the (popularity * risk of TBI) metric. You've done nothing to disprove that this metric is important, but you keep raising the other sports as if they support your argument. If you're just in "agree to disagree" territory then that's cool, but I view raising a debunked argument (at least as expressed by the plurality of the small audience still participating in this thread) with no new support for it as a pretty hostile move that undermines a good faith discussion.
posted by tonycpsu at 3:05 PM on October 23, 2014
The former point is almost self-refuting, but I'll just point out that heroin is rather popular as well, but most of society doesn't see that as a good thing. If football has negative consequences, and it certainly does (even as it has positive ones, including exercise), then the popularity of the sport is a negative when we're figuring out how to assess the impact of the negative consequences.
You do rightly point out that exercise belongs on the other side of the ledger, but of course it's not like if football went away, all the football players wouldn't be exercising. Perhaps some would reduce the amount they exercise, but without hard polling data or an analysis of multi-sport athletes we probably won't have an easy time assessing how many kids would or wouldn't replace football with some other activity.
So I share in Artw and JHarris' frustration that you keep going back to soccer and BMX biking and other sports that don't come close to football in the (popularity * risk of TBI) metric. You've done nothing to disprove that this metric is important, but you keep raising the other sports as if they support your argument. If you're just in "agree to disagree" territory then that's cool, but I view raising a debunked argument (at least as expressed by the plurality of the small audience still participating in this thread) with no new support for it as a pretty hostile move that undermines a good faith discussion.
posted by tonycpsu at 3:05 PM on October 23, 2014
From my POV, the popularity * risk argument is by no means settled. (What's TBI, again?) But far from not responding, I addressed it directly and promptly and may have even raised it in the first place.
You and I disagreed about the number of players in different sports, which is half that equation. You couldn't account for how there would be 2.8 million youth football players - a number I question -- when Pop Warner only has 225,000 players. But the growing popularity of soccer is fact, and as you note very few girls play football. Your own statistics show 222,000 injuries among girl soccer players alone. My point has always been that the larger popularity of soccer -- certainly in my (urban, middle class, coastal) circles -- offsets the lower (and probably underestimated) CTE risk, given your P*TBI equation.
Slapp*Happy and EyeBrows McGee also made solid arguments that went unrefuted, and EyeBrows seems to be the only person in this thread with direct, professional knowledge of the CTE risks involved in different sports.
Other sports have lower participation but much higher risks -- notably rodeo (10X football), MMA and hang-gliding (1/1000 annual death rate) -- which arguably offset their lower popularity. Of course if the issue is consent by players, or the immorality of watching a destructive sport, then the number participating shouldn't really be a factor.
posted by msalt at 4:14 PM on October 23, 2014
You and I disagreed about the number of players in different sports, which is half that equation. You couldn't account for how there would be 2.8 million youth football players - a number I question -- when Pop Warner only has 225,000 players. But the growing popularity of soccer is fact, and as you note very few girls play football. Your own statistics show 222,000 injuries among girl soccer players alone. My point has always been that the larger popularity of soccer -- certainly in my (urban, middle class, coastal) circles -- offsets the lower (and probably underestimated) CTE risk, given your P*TBI equation.
Slapp*Happy and EyeBrows McGee also made solid arguments that went unrefuted, and EyeBrows seems to be the only person in this thread with direct, professional knowledge of the CTE risks involved in different sports.
Other sports have lower participation but much higher risks -- notably rodeo (10X football), MMA and hang-gliding (1/1000 annual death rate) -- which arguably offset their lower popularity. Of course if the issue is consent by players, or the immorality of watching a destructive sport, then the number participating shouldn't really be a factor.
posted by msalt at 4:14 PM on October 23, 2014
You uncritically accepted an estimate of 13 million people who play soccer from Wikipedia and compared it to a 1.7 million figure of unknown origin (I can't find that number in a quick Google search.) I responded with more granular data, including a report showing the total injury rate per "exposure" (number of injuries / total number of practices and competitions) and the total number of concussions among youths playing organized football and soccer in high school, showing that soccer's injury rate and total incidence of concussions are nowhere near football's.
So, even if the 2.8 million figure is wrong, and soccer is many times more popular than football as you believe*, the fact is many more high school football players get concussions than high school soccer players (adding boys and girls soccer numbers together.) My argument is therefore not at all undermined by the possibility of soccer participation dwarfing football participation, and while it's theoretically possible that there's some epidemic of concussions outside the high school-aged population that wouldn't be reflected in the high school-only data, it seems unlikely, and the burden of proof would certainly be on you to demonstrate that.
* The numbers on this report (p. 21) seem to provide a more apples-to-apples comparison than any of the numbers we've cited previously, and suggest that the number of people ages 6+ who participate in tackle football 26 or more times a year is 3.6 million, while the number that play indoor or outdoor soccer 26 or more times a year is 8.8 million, meaning that soccer is played by 2.5 times as many people.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:35 AM on October 24, 2014
So, even if the 2.8 million figure is wrong, and soccer is many times more popular than football as you believe*, the fact is many more high school football players get concussions than high school soccer players (adding boys and girls soccer numbers together.) My argument is therefore not at all undermined by the possibility of soccer participation dwarfing football participation, and while it's theoretically possible that there's some epidemic of concussions outside the high school-aged population that wouldn't be reflected in the high school-only data, it seems unlikely, and the burden of proof would certainly be on you to demonstrate that.
* The numbers on this report (p. 21) seem to provide a more apples-to-apples comparison than any of the numbers we've cited previously, and suggest that the number of people ages 6+ who participate in tackle football 26 or more times a year is 3.6 million, while the number that play indoor or outdoor soccer 26 or more times a year is 8.8 million, meaning that soccer is played by 2.5 times as many people.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:35 AM on October 24, 2014
Oh, and:
Slapp*Happy and EyeBrows McGee also made solid arguments that went unrefuted
I did respond to Slap*Happy's comment, and as I said, I feel that his blanket statement:
The focus on football is coming from a race/class-motivated perspective. It really is.
is completely unsupported by fact. His cite of a single FiveThirtyEight post doesn't prove a damned thing other than one person on the Internet has an opinion. Remember, my claim is not that race isn't a factor, but that it's not the primary factor. He didn't even leave open the possibility that any of it is coming from a non-race/class-motivated perspective, an extraordinary claim which would require an extraordinarily high standard of evidence. Instead, it's essentially "a 538 author made a dumb statement, QED."
Eyebrows McGee made a much more informed and circumspect comment that I largely agree with -- there certainly is a lot of conflation going on of all of these issues. Still, the year-round nature of soccer doesn't really matter when we're measuring the absolute number of concussions in each sport, as the numbers I cited above do.
It's totally fine to say "we can't just focus on football -- other sports are also dangerous", but football is the most dangerous in terms of concussion rates, total number of concussions, etc. so it totally makes sense to look there first. Soccer's high participation but lower overall risk make it a great place to look for improvements as well, but football is objectively more dangerous and hurts more people.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:27 AM on October 24, 2014
Slapp*Happy and EyeBrows McGee also made solid arguments that went unrefuted
I did respond to Slap*Happy's comment, and as I said, I feel that his blanket statement:
The focus on football is coming from a race/class-motivated perspective. It really is.
is completely unsupported by fact. His cite of a single FiveThirtyEight post doesn't prove a damned thing other than one person on the Internet has an opinion. Remember, my claim is not that race isn't a factor, but that it's not the primary factor. He didn't even leave open the possibility that any of it is coming from a non-race/class-motivated perspective, an extraordinary claim which would require an extraordinarily high standard of evidence. Instead, it's essentially "a 538 author made a dumb statement, QED."
Eyebrows McGee made a much more informed and circumspect comment that I largely agree with -- there certainly is a lot of conflation going on of all of these issues. Still, the year-round nature of soccer doesn't really matter when we're measuring the absolute number of concussions in each sport, as the numbers I cited above do.
It's totally fine to say "we can't just focus on football -- other sports are also dangerous", but football is the most dangerous in terms of concussion rates, total number of concussions, etc. so it totally makes sense to look there first. Soccer's high participation but lower overall risk make it a great place to look for improvements as well, but football is objectively more dangerous and hurts more people.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:27 AM on October 24, 2014
You make a number of good points, and I appreciate your find on the relative number of soccer and football players. My perspective is also shaped by my anecdata; here in Portland, of all the kids I know, a couple of hundred say, a grand total of two play football, while literally 60-70% of grade school kids play soccer in an organized league, many for two or more seasons.
I have skin in this game too; I played high school soccer and both my daughters played all through elementary school, stopping right about the time the previous unknown risk of CTE from soccer was publicized (roughly 2012).
There are several different arguments against football made in this thread, and I think the easiest way to untangle them is to ask, what exactly is your proposal? Clearly, many in this topic would love to see football banned, or expect it to go away soon. But if that happened, people would switch to other sports, some of which are more dangerous or less fixable.
Football's rules are changed every single year to mitigate injury risk, and it (along with hockey and lacrosse) have the big advantage of having helmets, which can be improved and can also get sensors to measure what's actually going on. I just toured a research lab working on fundamental improvements to helmets, it's very interesting and important work.
Soccer doesn't have that. And unlike football, hitting with your head is an intrinsic part of the game. First graders are taught how to head the ball, and practice that, and the worse collisions occur on the frequent, crucial set plays like corner kicks where you can only use your head, in a tight space.
posted by msalt at 11:41 PM on October 25, 2014
I have skin in this game too; I played high school soccer and both my daughters played all through elementary school, stopping right about the time the previous unknown risk of CTE from soccer was publicized (roughly 2012).
There are several different arguments against football made in this thread, and I think the easiest way to untangle them is to ask, what exactly is your proposal? Clearly, many in this topic would love to see football banned, or expect it to go away soon. But if that happened, people would switch to other sports, some of which are more dangerous or less fixable.
Football's rules are changed every single year to mitigate injury risk, and it (along with hockey and lacrosse) have the big advantage of having helmets, which can be improved and can also get sensors to measure what's actually going on. I just toured a research lab working on fundamental improvements to helmets, it's very interesting and important work.
Soccer doesn't have that. And unlike football, hitting with your head is an intrinsic part of the game. First graders are taught how to head the ball, and practice that, and the worse collisions occur on the frequent, crucial set plays like corner kicks where you can only use your head, in a tight space.
posted by msalt at 11:41 PM on October 25, 2014
Also, Eyebrows' point was not simply that football is often played year round, but that the game flow is continuous. There are no breaks or stoppages where a player could be checked for concussion, and substitutions are strongly discouraged.
The very culture of the game encourages and requires you to play through. There no concussion protocols. And as a result, I believe a lot of head injuries are missed.
In football, no one plays more than half the game, offense and defense alternate in 2-8 minutes stretches of game time, and play is stopped every 4 to 6 seconds. There is a specific procedure to check, monitor and time the return of players who suffer concussions. Players are retiring from the game all the time at every level, if they suffer multiple concussions.
Football tallies a lot of injuries because of its popularity and because of the hitting, but there is also strong reasons to think that concussions especially are vastly under-reported in other sports. Especially in soccer.
posted by msalt at 11:53 PM on October 25, 2014
The very culture of the game encourages and requires you to play through. There no concussion protocols. And as a result, I believe a lot of head injuries are missed.
In football, no one plays more than half the game, offense and defense alternate in 2-8 minutes stretches of game time, and play is stopped every 4 to 6 seconds. There is a specific procedure to check, monitor and time the return of players who suffer concussions. Players are retiring from the game all the time at every level, if they suffer multiple concussions.
Football tallies a lot of injuries because of its popularity and because of the hitting, but there is also strong reasons to think that concussions especially are vastly under-reported in other sports. Especially in soccer.
posted by msalt at 11:53 PM on October 25, 2014
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Granted, Charlotte Allen does mention a fact or two in the linked LA Times Op-Ed, but she's basically trolling the entire time.
posted by Going To Maine at 7:35 AM on October 13, 2014 [2 favorites]