American football is one of the most lucrative businesses or industry in the United States. Besides, the NFL is the most popular sports league. Recent research by Forbes Magazine estimates that an average NFL team is worth 1.17 billion US dollars. The crowd this sport attracts is tremendous thus the higher returns. However, there is a catch in this entertainment. Some sacrifices are made to perfectly entertain the large crowds and maintain such a massive flow of cash. These sacrifices are not laid on the Commissioners, or the team owners, but to the players themselves. The offensive play that requires a lot of abrasion and collision is what characterizes the fields of football. Most of the clashes, however, take place through the head that has a helmet.
Continuous exposure to the impact can lead to long-term concussions and other brain disorders including chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The people who make these sacrifices aren’t the Commissioners or team owners, but the players themselves. These effects have variability across football players and have a potential of leading to drug abuse, high-risk life, and violent behavior among others. This bears the question of why we support, watch, and even engage in sports that have known long-term brain trauma. Does the NFL see the brain damage football causes? This paper looks at the several ways in which the game affects players, and the moral duty NFL has in controlling them.
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The topic of CTE and football is an important one as many of the retired players have been diagnosed with brain damage, and the number is increasing. Thus, this influences the future of the sport and those who will be playing. It cuts across and affects all the football player population- youth and professional players. The former group is highly vulnerable to the damage of brain tissues since they have not yet matured fully physically. Also, the concurrent accumulation of impacts from middle school, high school, college and professional football is a massive contributor to the future brain-related disorders. It is sad, however, to note that a lot of parents lack the information and statistics hence still allow their children to play unaware of the impending risks and dangers (Omalu et al., 2010). It is the will of NFL to let things stay as they are just to protect the golden goose brand. The fear is that the information would lead to reduced cash flow to the industry.
The more people come to learn about CTE and concussions, the more they realize that permanent brain damage is an occupational hazard of the world of football. Even if not all of the players suffer these brain-damaging disorders, many of them are diagnosed in the long run. CTE has been discovered in the brain of many dead players for every position apart from kickers. CTE is raising discussions all over despite its prevalence not being known. The extent to which all the concerned parties handle the condition makes it ambiguous as there is under-reporting of the incidents. Also, there is lack of trained sports physicians at most non-elite and amateur sports events, and misinformation on the diagnosis such as the need for a player to lose consciousness for there to be a concussion that leads to CTE (Omalu et al., 2010).
The concussions that have been reporting range from 1.6 to 3.8 million players, half of which is unreported (Bonds, 2015). The US has statistics ranging up to 100,000 reports of concussions at the high school level every year. This number is a large number of injured people that are more or less hidden thus the importance of concussion safety should not be ignored. The number of contacts has increased as athletes are faster, fiercer, bigger and more aggressive than ever before. Also, these athletes suffer greater diagnosis rate of CTE than the general public, and this can be attributed to the injuries and impacts accrued in sports. A retired sports personality is likely to experience mental disorders twenty times more than the population average.
With all these cases put in context, it is the liability of NFL to ensure that there is enough protection for the players. In the previous years, the body has changed rules that better protect quarterbacks and charge players that do deliberate tackles on the heads of defenseless opponents. However, these changes only limit but do not prevent the occurrence of such irreversible damage to the brain that the football players experience. Thus, the officials are responsible for the diagnosis of CTE and the effects of impact on players in the long run. It has been found that the NFL omits any information that would reduce the cash flow and only wanted to keep players on the field through their rules. The NFL took long to implement the standards and invested much of their time attacking and refuting medical findings on the effects of concussion hence creating an unfavorable environment for the league. The body spent in denying the claims stating that it is the work of the mainstream media that stain the league. To them, the sportsperson cannot do their job without using the head. The officials do not disseminate the information on the effects of concussion and the danger the sport creates to the life of athletes from every part of the industry. This, in turn, makes the whole game be questioned on its aptness and readiness to reduce the injuries and effects suffered by the sportsmen.
In conclusion, the culture that football has instilled in us has created a favorable environment for the officials to overlook the effects of concussion and possibility of CTE because of the high returns. However, NFL is accountable for the rising cases of trauma facing the athletes in their later life stages and has the moral responsibility to solve this problem.
Reference
Bonds, G. B., Edwards, W. W., Spradley, B. D., & Phillips, T. (January 01, 2015). The Impact of Litigation, Regulation, and Legislation on Sport Concussion Management: The Sports Journal. Retrieved from http://thesportjournal.org/article/the-impact-of-litigation-regulation-and-legislation-on-sport-concussion-management/
Omalu, B. I., Hamilton, R. L., Kamboh, M. I., DeKosky, S. T., & Bailes, J. (2010). Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in a National Football League Player: Case report and emerging medico legal practice questions: Journal of forensic nursing, 6(1), 40-46.
