T
he popular television show “South Park” began its fall season with an episode about parents calling for a change in the rules of football to promote safety. This results in a complete overhaul of the game in which tackles are replaced with hugs, trash talk is replaced with compliments, and the overall goal is to be as nice as possible. The new game is called “Sarcastaball.”
Oct. 4’s opinion piece “This is football” seems to call for a drastic change in the game of American football. Football is of incredible importance to our economy. Successful sports teams boost the economies of their home city. NBA superstar Lebron James’ departure from the Cleveland Cavaliers cost downtown Cleveland’s economy an approximated $50 million in profit loss over the course of one season. Upon his arrival in Miami, the local economy spiked by a similar amount.
The NFL brings in approximately three times as much revenue as the NBA annually, suggesting that the average NFL team has a far greater impact on its city than the average NBA team. No professional sports league has as great of an economic impact as the NFL, which takes in about $9.4 billion in annual revenue.
Even football’s health risks aren’t as significant as alarmists describe. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) reportedly has led to the suicides of several NFL players. But NFL players aren’t less healthy than the average American. A 1994 Center for Disease Control study conducted by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health on NFL players who played at least five years between 1959 and 1988, a time during which football was more brutal than today, found that the average life expectancy of these players was considerably higher than the average American male. The study included 3,439 players, a generous sample size. Furthermore, the amount of players that died from cancer was much lower than the rates for the average American male.
If the comparison to average Americans seems unpersuasive because of the heightened physical fitness of NFL players, a closer comparison exists: baseball players. American baseball players are closer to football players in average height, weight, and body mass index than the average American.
Using the same criteria as the study conducted by NIOSH, respected sportswriter Bill Barnwell compared athletes from the two sports over the same time period, 1959-1988. He found that baseball players had, on average, slightly higher mortality rates than football players. Surprisingly, football players live even longer than their professional athletic counterparts.
There simply is no correlation between football and overall bad health. Football is not the only profession with suicide risks. Two of the most likely are attourneys and dentists. No one argues for overhauling or eliminating these professions. Improvements in helmet technology along with changes in player safety rules will help fix the CTE problem.
The NFL has already changed many rules to make the game safer, making hits on the quarterback’s head illegal, levying heavy fines on players making dangerous helmet-to-helmet hits, and protecting defenseless wide receivers. The NFL has demonstrated its seriousness about safety.
American football is heading in the right direction, implementing thoughtful changes as new concussion research becomes available. Football has a rich history and tradition in America, one worth preserving despite its challenges.
