The End of Football

[pellegrino]

You dropped a lot of knowledge there too. Cars ARE so yesterday and bikes ARE the future!!!!

It is an interesting idea. It seems like it would be most popular in cold areas.

I'm sure they could play with those kind of helmets in the south too. Think aobut the increase in peripheral vision!

[beefytee]

Looks like hockey players are looking for the same cut that the NFL players got:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/former-...ions-1.2439840

I think that hockey has much more room to adapt than football. If you take away the hits in hockey you still have an exciting fast paced game. Will it be the same? No, but it is still a viable sport.

You can't take the hits away from football and still have much of a sport. I don't think you'll ever get much of an audience for 2 hand touch.

[Shaka]

Looks like hockey players are looking for the same cut that the NFL players got:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/former-...ions-1.2439840

I think that hockey has much more room to adapt than football. If you take away the hits in hockey you still have an exciting fast paced game. Will it be the same? No, but it is still a viable sport.

You can't take the hits away from football and still have much of a sport. I don't think you'll ever get much of an audience for 2 hand touch.

Hmmmm. I wonder how many of these players played with antiquated helmet technology by their own choice. It's funny that hockey helmets have improved but many players, if not the majority of the players, continued wearing the same helmets that were popular in the seventies. I have one like them still in my hockey bag. How many of them refused to wear face masks or shields?

Here's one of the helmets I'm writing about:

18-4552.jpg

[Uncle Ted]

How Football Fleeces Taxpayers: Gregg Easterbrook on The King of Sports

Whether you like football or not - whether you've ever bought a ticket to a high school, college, or NFL game - you're paying for it.


That's one of the takeaways from The King of Sports: Football’s Impact on America, Gregg Easterbrook's fascinating new book on the cultural, economic, and political impact of America's most popular and lucrative sport.


“The [state-supported] University of Maryland charges each...undergraduate $400 a year to subsidize the football program," says Easterbrook, who notes that only a half-dozen or so college teams are truly self-supporting. Even powerhouse programs such as the University of Florida's pull money from students and taxpayers. "They do it," he says, "because they can get away with it.”


At the pro level, billionaire team owners such as Paul Allen of the Seattle Seahawks and Shahid Khan of the Jacksonville Jaguars benefit from publicly financed stadiums for which they pay little or nothing while reaping all revenue. Easterbrook also talks about how the lobbyists managed to get the NFL chartered as a nonprofit by amending tax codes designed for chambers of commerce and trade organizations.


As ESPN.com's Tuesday Morning Quarterback columnist, Easterbrook absolutely loves football but also isn't slow to throw penalty flags at the game he thinks is uniquely America. In fact, he sees the hypocrisy at the center of the business of football as "one of the ways that football synchs [with] American culture....Everyone in football talks rock-ribbed conservatism, self-reliance. Then their economic structure is subsidies and guaranteed benefits. Isn't that America?"
[...]

http://reason.com/reasontv/2013/12/0...asterbrook-tac

Hmm... it's still worth it.

[Uncle Ted]

Should the NFL Lose Its Tax-Exempt Status?

Times are good for the National Football League. Viewership is up. For the 47th year in a row, Harris Interactive named pro football the most popular sport in America. And with overall revenues north of $9 billion, the NFL is the most lucrative sports league on the planet.


That's not enough for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. He wants to nearly triple the league's revenues to $25 billion by 2027—a mind-bogglingly large number. But here's an even more shocking fact: The NFL pays nothing in taxes on all those revenues. Not a nickel. And now the anti-corruption organization Rootstrikers wants to put an end to the NFL's free ride.


Over the weekend, Rootstrikers blasted out an email urging people to sign a petition in support of Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-Okla.) PRO Sports Act, which would ban big sports leagues from receiving tax-exempt status. "You know the NFL as the National Football League," says the Rootstrikers email. "But the IRS knows them better as the Nonprofit Football League—that's because the NFL has not paid any taxes since 1966 and average Americans are left paying higher taxes to make up for that lost revenue. Senator [Tom] Coburn is trying to change that, and we support his endeavor." Coburn's bill would ban pro sports leagues with more than $10 million in revenue from receiving tax-exempt status.


So, you might ask, how did the NFL score such a lucky deal in the first place? It's a classic tale of political influence and lobbying ingenious, as Gregg Easterbrook explains in an excerpt of his book The King of Sports: Football's Impact on America, published in the Atlantic:
[...]

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013...-roger-goodell

Hmm... it's still worth it.

[PaloAltoCougar]

Ronney Jenkins' depression, attempted suicide and ongoing struggles are currently a front-page story on CNN. He attributes it to CTE but it can't be diagnosed until after he's dead. I hope he derives some pleasure from the knowledge he kept me and many thousands of others mightily entertained.

[All-American]

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013...-roger-goodell

Hmm... it's still worth it.

Doesn't matter. The teams aren't nonprofit.

[smokymountainrain]

Ronney Jenkins' depression, attempted suicide and ongoing struggles are currently a front-page story on CNN. He attributes it to CTE but it can't be diagnosed until after he's dead. I hope he derives some pleasure from the knowledge he kept me and many thousands of others mightily entertained.

Awful. That was hard to read.

[TripletDaddy]

BYU fans should consider a class action suit against the school based on all the headaches bronco has given us over the years. I would cite apparent confusion amongst many of the players on the field and an overall increase in stupidity amongst the fan base as prima facie evidence.

[Uncle Ted]

Doesn't matter. The teams aren't nonprofit.

I am not nonprofit either but would like tax-exempt status as well (even if it is for the first 10 million). Maybe I need to declare myself as a pro league.

[old_gregg]

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013...-roger-goodell

Hmm... it's still worth it.

He wants to nearly triple the league's revenues to $25 billion by 2027

this is a stupid argument and a stupid article. "the league" with revenue in the billions≠the tax exempt 501(c)(6).

average Americans are left paying higher taxes to make up for that lost revenue

the nfl is not a source of net economic loss at either the macro or franchise level. there's a reason why cities are willing to prostitute themselves out to even flirt with the idea of getting a franchise.

[All-American]

I am not nonprofit either but would like tax-exempt status as well (even if it is for the first 10 million). Maybe I need to declare myself as a pro league.

Good thinking. And see how much money you'd get to keep before it gets passed along to the entities which comprise your league, each of which ARE taxed.

[Uncle Ted]

Good thinking. And see how much money you'd get to keep before it gets passed along to the entities which comprise your league, each of which ARE taxed.

Maybe corporate tax should be eliminated based on the same logic.

[All-American]

Maybe corporation tax should be eliminated based on the same logic.

Now you're talking.

[Uncle Ted]

Football’s Risks Sink In, Even in Heart of Texas

MARSHALL, Tex. — In many ways, this East Texas town stands as a vibrant example of the state’s storied relationship with football.


Not long ago, caravans of cars drove to Houston and Dallas to watch the Marshall Mavericks battle for the high school state football championship, and signs hanging from bridges along the interstate read, “Playoff bound.” The local sporting-goods shops would sell out of red-and-white merchandise — anything in the school’s colors — on game days.


But now Marshall represents something quite different — a shift in perceptions about football that would have been hard to imagine when the school made a cameo in the book “Friday Night Lights” nearly 25 years ago.


Amid widespread and growing concerns about the physical dangers of the sport, the school board here approved plans in February to shut down the district’s entry-level, tackle-football program for seventh graders in favor of flag football. There was little objection.

“I’m surprised, in some ways, because you know how it is in a one high school town where football is everything,” said Marc Smith, the superintendent of the Marshall Independent School District. “I anticipated a little more resistance and concern. But the safety factor really resonated with our parents. They get it, and they see their little 11- or 12-year-olds getting slammed to the ground.”

No one here considers the decision the beginning of the end of scholastic football in Texas. The sport remains wildly popular, and recreational tackle leagues are open to 5-year-olds. But because it is happening in Texas, an otherwise small move to end a seventh-grade tackle program reflects how the issue of brain trauma has begun to affect the football landscape.


In less than a decade, hits to the head have gone from an unavoidable (and underreported) byproduct of a tough sport to an injury that has altered the way the game is played. Recent research has indicated that players as young as 7 sustain hits to the head comparable in magnitude to those absorbed by high school and adult players.
[...]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/12/sp...=64827400&_r=0


If this is the end of football then what will folks in Texas do with their Friday nights? Maybe football needs to be replaced by ice hockey.