NFL Irony: Never Healthier; Never in More Trouble
By Ken Reed
From a financial sense, the NFL has never been healthier. Revenue from TV contracts, luxury suites, club seats, ticket revenue, merchandise sales, etc., is going through the roof. As a country, we love watching this violent sport. The most-watched television shows every year are always NFL football games.
However, from a socio-cultural perspective, football in general and the NFL in particular, has never been in more trouble. The violent nature of the game has resulted in thousands of brain injury cases, from the professional level to the youth level. Only once has an autopsy of a former football player’s brain not revealed evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the progressive brain disease which has resulted in many former NFL players suffering from depression, dementia, Lou Gehrig’s disease and other neurological conditions in middle age or younger. Sadly, some of these CTE victims, including stars Junior Seau and Dave Duerson, have committed suicide.
It’s frightening to note that it’s not just concussions that are causing the problems. Multiple studies show that repetitive sub-concussive hits to the brain (such as those resulting from offensive and defensive linemen pounding heads play after play) can result in a variety of short and long-term cognitive problems.
Remember, we’re talking about the brain here, the seat of one’s personality, not an ankle, knee or shoulder injury.
On another negative front for the league, the Ray Rice case has highlighted the fact that the NFL has a violence towards women problem. This is a league that requires its players to be physically violent performers in order to succeed in their football profession. While it’s undoubtedly true that violence on the playing field can be a healthy release for some men it’s also true that too many NFL players have a hard time turning off their violent tendencies in everyday life.
Perhaps the NFL’s biggest problem today is the way it has handled the Rice case. The NFL’s strategy has involved a terrible PR campaign at best, and a coverup all the way to the top at worst.
The video released yesterday by TMZ from the security camera in the elevator in which Rice decked his fiancee (now wife) and then dragged her out while she was unconscious, should’ve put him out of the league and in prison. Instead, Rice initially received a two-game suspension from the NFL and its commissioner Roger Goodell — that’s two games less than an NFL player passively caught smoking marijuana in his family room receives.
After the ugly elevator incident, Rice’s team, the Baltimore Ravens, started a PR campaign to 1) defend Rice’s character; and 2) push some of the blame onto the victim, Rice’s fiancee. It was a classic case of the powerful attempting to comfort the violent and afflict the victim. The NFL’s approach in the Rice case has been driven by ego, arrogance and greed. It results from a profit-at-all-costs, “we must protect the shield no matter what” mentality.
As we look at the Rice case today, it’s extremely hard to believe that the NFL and Roger Goodell didn’t see the video from the security camera in the elevator before giving Rice the initial two-game slap on the wrist. Any routine investigation would’ve included observing the video from the elevator’s security camera. When the Rice incident first came to light, several reporters said that the NFL had indeed seen the elevator video. Also, an employee of the Revel, the Atlantic City casino where the fight took place, has said that the NFL did see the security camera footage before disciplining Rice. If it comes to light that there was a coverup in the NFL offices then Goodell clearly should be fired.
But all of that is just dealing with the symptom, not the cause. The cause is a violent game that too often has brain trauma and domestic violence as side effects. That’s a big problem for the NFL. A problem that the latest glowing financial reports for the league can’t override.
— Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans
Sports Forum Podcast
Episode #29 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: The Honorable Tom McMillen Visits League of Fans’ Sports Forum – McMillen is a former All-American basketball player, Olympian, Rhodes Scholar and U.S. Congressman, and has a long involvement with the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sport (now called the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition). We discuss the state of college athletics today, given the pressures of NIL, the transfer portal, sports gambling and huge media contracts. McMillen then provides great perspective on the poor state of physical fitness our young people are experiencing today.
Listen on Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Anchor and others.
Follow on Facebook: @SportsForumPodcast
More Episodes on Apple Podcasts; Spotify; Google Podcasts; PocketCasts; & Anchor
Episode #28 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: A Chat With Mano Watsa, a Leading Basketball and Life Educator – Watsa is President of PGC Basketball, the largest education basketball camp in the world. We discuss problems in youth sports today.
Episode #27 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Kids’ Sports: How We Can Take Back the Game and Restore Quality Family Time In the Process – Linda Flanagan is author of “Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids’ Sports and Why It Matters.” We discuss how commercialized and professionalized youth sports are hurting kids and their families.
Episode #26 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: How Can We Fix Youth Sports? – John O’Sullivan is Founder and CEO of Changing the Game Project and author of “Changing the Game: The Parents Guide to Raising Happy, High Performing Athletes and Giving Youth Sports Back to Our Kids.”
Episode #25 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Physical Education Should Be a Critical Component of K-12 School Design – Michael Horn is co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation.
Episode #24 – League of Fans’ Sports Forum podcast: Mental Health and Athletes: Ending the Stigma – Nathan Braaten and Taylor Ricci are the founders of Dam Worth It, a non-profit created to end the stigma around mental health at colleges and universities through sport, storytelling, and community creation.
Media
"How We Can Save Sports" author Ken Reed appears on Fox & Friends to explain how there's "too much adult in youth sports."
Ken Reed appears on Mornings with Gail from KFKA Radio in Colorado to discuss bad parenting in youth athletics.
“Should College Athletes Be Paid?” Ken Reed on The Morning Show from Wisconsin Public Radio
Ken Reed appears on KGNU Community Radio in Colorado (at 02:30) to discuss equality in sports and Title IX.
Ken Reed appears on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour (at 38:35) to discuss his book The Sports Reformers: Working to Make the World of Sports a Better Place, and to talk about some current sports issues.
- Reed Appears on Ralph Nader Radio Hour League of Fans’ sports policy director, Ken Reed, Ralph Nader and the New York Times’ Tyler Kepner discussed a variety of sports issues on Nader’s radio show as well as Reed’s updated book, How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan. Reed's book was released in paperback in February, and has a new introduction and several updated sections.
League of Fans is a sports reform project founded by Ralph Nader to fight for the higher principles of justice, fair play, equal opportunity and civil rights in sports; and to encourage safety and civic responsibility in sports industry and culture.
Vanderbilt Sport & Society - On The Ball with Andrew Maraniss with guest Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director for League of Fans and author of How We Can Save Sports: A Game Plan
Sports & Torts – Ken Reed, Sports Policy Director, League of Fans – at the American Museum of Tort Law
Books