With the beginning of February draws the end of the cornerstone of American culture: football. With Super Bowl 50 passing overhead, another, darker figure in football hovers — concussions. Countless articles, studies, and research papers have been made: cementing the link between a game that encourages ramming heads against each other with brain trauma — even a movie starring Will Smith that depicts the struggle between Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist that discovered the link between football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), and the NFL’s efforts to conceal the evidence.
Yet, there hasn’t been much to show for all the concussion conversation.
The NFL’s revenue in 2015 ($12.4 billion) has doubled from that of 2005’s. Super Bowl ads have become entertainment, and their price has increased by more than 75 percent over the last 10 years. The NFL’s television ratings have increased since last year, despite domestic violence and safety concerns — in fact, more people than ever are watching American professional football.
It all leads to the question — why isn’t the league losing? In spite of what seems to be career-ending blows in the form of scandal after scandal, the NFL only grows larger and larger. The root of this apathy towards significant issues could lie within the pro players themselves.
The simple fact is that most NFL players don’t really care about the consequences of concussions — the consequences of missing a game are far worse. Troy Polamalu, former Pittsburgh Steelers safety, admitted on The Dan Patrick Show that he had lied to get back into a game after experiencing a concussion.
“There’s so much built up about team camaraderie and sacrifice and football is such a tough man’s game. I think that’s why it’s so popular. That’s why so many blue collar communities and people can really feel attracted to this because it is a blue collar struggle that football players go through.”
And that’s just one story. There are countless others: of the doctor’s office that players go to receive the never-ending stream of painkillers, of shots given on the field to put the players back in before half-time, of players driven to suicide to escape the insurmountable pain of existence. But in the end, what does it matter?
When sports bars fill up for the Super Bowl, nobody will be thinking of NFL safety. When Coldplay performs for the half-time show, nobody will be commenting on linebacker Adrian Robinson’s suicide, on how his brain showed signs of CTE.
To the average Joe, looking for an escape of the pressures of the week, looking for entertainment in the form of a sport that’s akin to the gladiator fights of Rome, it doesn’t matter — who wants to be that guy at the Super Bowl party that’s moping about irreparably damaged brain tissue?
It’s the callousness of the masses, the unwillingness to accept that America’s patron sport harms its players, the pro player’s denials of injury in order to get back on the field- that’s what allows the NFL continue to make billions.
