I am done with football. https://t.co/8dfEizHO0e
— On Trial for ?????? (@ZeddRebel) July 25, 2017
This CTE study came out earlier this week — it got a lot of coverage in the local media, being as the medical team is Boston-based — but there were so many other important stories to cover, and it’s not like I understand sportsball.
But this *follow-up* story in Deadspin makes it pretty clear that the big-money men in charge of the NFL have decided that maximizing their own profits, this season, is more important than not only their players’ lives and health… but the whole future of the sport. What parent with any options is gonna let their kid get involved with a sport that’s pretty much guaranteed to lead to traumatic brain injury and an unhappy, abbreviated life? (“Suicide, in fact, was the leading cause of death among those with mild CTE.”)
(Sure, professional boxing is still A Thing, but it’s been half a century since boxing was on tv outside of niche pay-per-view channels. And boxing doesn’t require the kind of high-dollar equipment and massive feeder system supported by high schools and colleges all over the country… )
And that pretty much puts the NFL in line with the sociopaths currently squatting in the Oval Office, so there’s your political tie-in.
The NFL is evil. https://t.co/B1Jf6PVwPb
— On Trial for ??? (@ZeddRebel) July 28, 2017
The NFL has given the National Institutes of Health less than half of the $30 million they promised for concussion research five years ago, and after repeatedly trying to influence how their “unrestricted gift” was used, the league is letting their agreement expire with no plans to finish paying up.
The news comes from a report by ESPN’s Outside the Lines, two days after ranking members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce published a letter to the NFL demanding to know when the $30 million would be paid in full. The league responded to Congress with a mealy-mouthed statement about being “engaged in constructive discussions,” but the NIH told ESPN today that there are no current plans for the remaining funds and the agreement will simply expire next month as originally planned—with at least $16 million yet to be paid…
The NFL trumpeted this gift as proof of their commitment to addressing CTE and head trauma. It’s abundantly clear now that this was simple lip service. The NFL was not committed to concussion research; it was committed to receiving praise for concussion research done on their terms and their terms only. The NFL, in other words, was interested in paying for propaganda, and the NIH refused to play along.