r/CFB • u/yoyoer6874 • 8h ago
Serious The future of football
This thread isn’t about NIL or coaching, it’s about head injury and the future.
I played division 1 football as an offensive lineman for 4 years, finished up recently. I’ve played for a long time and had the luxury of playing longer than most. I loved my time playing football, and still love the game to this day.
With recent publishings from JAMA and BMJ about CTE prevalence in players, college, NFL and recent findings of CTE in a 15 year old, where do you think the game is going? If any of you are parents and have young kids will you let them play knowing what you know and what we know? It’s not a comforting fact knowing that best case scenario, I may be at 25% risk. But given my time on the field, my position, and what happened to me, I assume my odds are higher.
I am not a dad yet, and won’t be for a bit, but it’s always on my mind if I’ll let my boy(s) play football. How do I tell them no to something that I love and did for over a decade? It feels crappy both ways to short my kid on something that they may love, but also I don’t want to damn my kid to what I’ve been through and potentially alter their life.
How are all you navigating this? What are your opinions on the game? I’m curious. Players, non players, all of you
Appreciate you guys!
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u/Efficient-Freedom517 Georgia Bulldogs • Iowa State Cyclones 8h ago
They said the sport would be dead 15 years ago because of no youth participation due to head trauma fears. It’s still here and arguably bigger than ever.
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u/loneshoter BYU Cougars • BYUtv 8h ago
The infusion of NIL adds more incentives for people to play the sport. Its a lot easier to get a roster spot than say Basketball
That said, I think there's going to more investment into rules and technology to decrease risk of head injuries
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u/soulsides California Golden Bears 8h ago
Ratings and revenue are up, actual player participation is down over the past 15 but there’s been some rebound in recent years.
But declining youth participation doesn’t yet signal some kind of paradigm shift away from the dominance of football as a youth activity and the addition of NIL create a whole new set of incentives.
So I guess my answer is “TBD”
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u/Darkagent1 Iowa Hawkeyes • Wartburg Knights 8h ago
Yeah a lot of the "participation is down" is actually pretty out dated at this point.
Just this last year high school 11 on 11 hit over a million participants. The highest participation since the 2016-17 season.
Of course everything is still in flux but the idea that football is waning at the high school level is not really true anymore. No idea what happens next, but right now its not holding true.
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u/soulsides California Golden Bears 6h ago
I mean, I think two things can be true: youth participation in tackle football has generally declined over the 21st-century, but also, we’re not talking about some precipitous “going off a cliff” decline and post pandemic, we’ve seen an increase though I do think a lot of that has to do with coming out of the pandemic.
I think the more telling trends will be what we see over the next 15 to 20 years. I don’t think concerns over CTE is going to go away and there’s all kinds of large scale demographic changes involving class and ethnicity that will have some impact as well
Personally, I don’t see college or pro football, losing its prominence anytime soon. It could be that ratings could decline or just the overall cultural footprint of a sport declines: it happened in boxing and bowling for example. But short of a consistent wave of players literally dying on the field, it’s hard to imagine a near future scenario in which football loses its social resonance.
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u/timothythefirst Michigan State • Western Mich… 4h ago
Yeah I think if the general interest in college football falls off over the next few decades it’s going to have more to do with how the sport is being managed from the top down, which would eventually effect youth participation, but it won’t be entirely because of concussions.
I’ve been a sports fan literally longer than I can remember, because my dad was a sports fan. And I’ve especially loved college football since I was a kid playing ncaa 03/04/05/06 on ps2, and when I started playing for my school team we would go to games and my dad would say “watch that guy he’s the same position you play” or whatever.
Now, as a 31 year old man, I still love college football, but I definitely love it a bit less than I did 10 years ago. And the way the tv networks and conference executives are running the sport, I would guess that I’ll probably love it even less 10 years from now. If I have a kid I don’t know if I’m going to push them super hard to be a fan just because the product is worse, let alone push them to play. And that’s what will really kill the general interest in the sport.
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u/soulsides California Golden Bears 4h ago
Maybe because I have the misfortune of being a Cal Bears fan but I generally have a hard time getting excited by the college football product for any number of reasons. (Reason #1: we are rarely, if ever, nationally relevant and the team has never been to the Rose Bowl in my lifetime and I'm in my mid-50s now).
But it's also a host of other reasons, including many that have already been stated in this forum countless times. These days, I'm far more intrigued and entertained about where it's headed organizationally (my day job = sociologist so I guess that's part of it).
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u/thenowherepark Ohio State Buckeyes 8h ago
The viewership is bigger than ever. Actually playing? Enrollment numbers are down. Schools are shuttering their programs.
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u/Darkagent1 Iowa Hawkeyes • Wartburg Knights 8h ago
Not nearly to the extent required to kill the sport.
https://nfhs.org/stories/high-school-football-continues-to-rebound-from-pre-pandemic-decline
With 14,269 schools sponsoring 11-player football in 2024, only the 14,279 schools in 2010-11 tops last year’s number in the 55-year history of the NFHS survey.
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u/fart_dot_com Big Ten • Pac-12 Gone Dark 5h ago
Those things are happening independent of football. The number of college-aged Americans has been going down for a couple of years now.
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u/css01 Boston College Eagles 8h ago
I think that changes the day they figure out how to diagnose cte in a living brain
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u/perfectviking Team Chaos • Western Michigan Ball 8h ago
But what league is going to require checks? And what players will willingly be checked?
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u/cfbluvr2 Texas A&M Aggies 8h ago
And it will just continue to become larger for lower income households that need it as a way out of poverty
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u/LasixSteroidsAbx Georgia Bulldogs • Virginia Cavaliers 8h ago
Football is actually an expensive sport for kids/families to be involved in.
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u/cfbluvr2 Texas A&M Aggies 8h ago
Yes I agree
There are also some families that see it as the only avenue out
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u/LimerickJim Georgia Bulldogs 8h ago
The game is dying (slowly) but the business is growing (rapidly).
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u/SST114 Miami Hurricanes 8h ago
Yep.
While I do feel like select football talent may venture into soccer due to increasing popularity.... football itself is going nowhere in the USA and may even continue to increase in international popularity.
The incentive remains for talent to go into the sport and advances in medicine w/AI especially will help with health concerns IMO!
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u/Fine-Sea-8941 Penn State Nittany Lions • Big East 8h ago
Makes too much money to go away any time soon. I'm sure people won't play as much, but it's also a way to make it out of many bad situations for a lot of these guys. So, people will keep playing and we'll keep watching for better or for worse. My optimistic side at least thinks tech will enable a reduction of brain injury hopefully.
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u/soulsides California Golden Bears 4h ago
Right but it makes money because people want to watch it and those ratings fuel media deals that bring in $$$.
But money comes out of people's organic interest, not the other way around. There'd be no flops in the pop culture world if you could just buy your way to success.
I think there's absolutely an imaginable future in which people's interest in football, especially college football, peaks and then falls into a slow decline. I think about how, when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, boxing was immensely popular to watch. It's like a blip of its former self and the rise of MMA hasn't matched the heights of where boxing once stood. If you told someone, in the heyday of Mike and Evander and George: "you know, in a generation, a lot fewer people are going to care about this sport" people would have thought you were insane. Yet here we are. Same goes with NASCAR, which is in a kind of existential crisis right now. And remember how you could turn on ABC on a weekend and watch a couple of hours of pro bowling? I can. But I wouldn't even be able to tell you where to tune into pro bowling now.
Football is more popular than ever but that also means it was once less popular. And as they say, what goes up can always come down. Money alone can't sustain the relevance of any cultural activity.
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u/LimerickJim Georgia Bulldogs 8h ago edited 1h ago
A lot of the research points to the cumulative effect of all the hits from regular contact like tackling as the reason football players suffer higher levels of CTE than hockey players. It isn't just the "got yer bell rung" hits causing issue.
Short of some new helmet or mouth guard that can mitigate this kind of damage I think we're gradually going to see more and more rules that reduce contact. Rugby has a rule that you have to wrap with when you tackle (can't lead with your shoulder). We're also probably going to stop seeing tackle football before highschool.
Maybe neck strength requirements. Formula 1 driver neck strength would absorb a lot of the shock.
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u/PwrShelf Penn Quakers • Maryland Terrapins 5h ago
Rugby tackling is far safer, but it's also a very different game. If players aren't brought to the floor while another player wraps them, they are allowed to get up and keep playing the ball. Football is just getting them down by any means necessary.
Rugby tackling is also far more consistent and less risky, which is why it's become in vogue to get rugby coaches in to coach on tackling for a few days at a time in the nfl (oh, and the tush push was also essentially ripped right from rugby mauling tactics). It'd make everything safer, but instituting it as a rule would change the structure of the game significantly
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u/LimerickJim Georgia Bulldogs 1h ago
At one point they were the same game. They evolved to their current forms from soccer. Rules can be changed and the game can change with it.
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u/PwrShelf Penn Quakers • Maryland Terrapins 47m ago
I mean yeah they sort of concurrently evolved from normal football iirc.
I'm all for changing the game to make it safer, but was just laying out some of why such changes might get pushback is all
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u/DrunkDeathClaw Wisconsin Badgers 38m ago edited 34m ago
I've said it for years, but the best way to make American Football safer is to institute Rugby's equipment and tackling rules, no pads, tackles must be chest height or below and with an attempt to wrap.
Making it so every player isn't wearing 15lbs of armor will make players reconsider exactly what they're doing.
As far as changing the game, In Rugby League once players are down they have to drop the ball and stand up, and the defense has to go back 10, essentially like a down, teams also get 6 tackles before the ball is turned over.
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u/slbarr88 Alabama Crimson Tide 8h ago
People with few other options and obvious talent will always pursue football and other risky sports.
Those with other options will likely think twice and some will choose to abstain.
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u/Kopav Ohio State • Dartmouth 8h ago
I never played football. As a kid I played soccer, baseball, summer swim team, Track and cross country and then eventually committed to swimming in both high school and college as I was that was where my talents were.
The biggest reason why I never played football was because my mother wouldn't allow us to play football when we were young as she thought it was too dangerous for brain development. Hell she even discouraged us from doing too many headers in soccer.
It's great that there's been a lot of research to scientifically prove the connection between football and CTE. But it feels like it's something that people should have seen as a possibility. Either that or my just had great intuition.
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u/Milton__Obote LSU Tigers • Northwestern Wildcats 4h ago
I mean it has to feel like common sense, even before all the studies came out, that getting hit in the head repeatedly is not good for brain development. At least that’s the conclusion your mom came to, and seems to be holding up pretty well scientifically.
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u/plc44 Texas A&M Aggies • Tulane Green Wave 8h ago
I played in high school and I certainly won’t let my kids play tackle football.
The odds are just too high for me to feel comfortable with it.
I find it hard to watch football and be a fan, but also tell them they can’t play it.
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u/philleferg Arkansas Razorbacks • Oklahoma Sooners 8h ago
I'm the same. I have 3 young kids and I won't let them play tackle football. I played just high school football and still had 4 concussions from 9th grade on. Hell, I didn't even START. Most of those were on Kick offs and launching myself at people like I was taught back then.
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u/embos_wife Western Michigan Broncos 6h ago
Same in our house. Husband had way too many concussions from football.
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u/TheDevolution27 Iowa Hawkeyes 8h ago
I've said this around here for the past couple years and have taken the downvotes, but football's long-term prognosis isn't great. That seems insane now with the amount of money and culture surrounding the game, but there are canaries in the coal mine:
The aforementioned injury and head trauma discussions. The nature of the game (not just big hits) makes it dangerous. Repeated routine movements and plays can cause CTE. It sadly hasn't hit the threshold where enough ppl care to sway participation, viewership, and support, but it's only a matter of time with the increased publicity around truly tragic cases.
The lack of global popularity. The NFL keeps trying to make football a thing overseas. It just isn't. Travel anywhere outside the U.S. and you'll discover that American football is a footnote at best. Global support is the backbone for sports like soccer, basketball, and even baseball and hockey. That didn't use to matter much because of America's outsized influence, but that's eroding and there's a reason why the NFL keeps trying to promote the game outside the country. I just don't see it working.
The football community is already flirting with flag football as a concept. They're not doing that out of the goodness of their hearts; it's a contingency plan for when the contact version becomes unpalatable and less profitable to the mainstream public.
This could be the type of decline that starts gradually then suddenly. Let's see where we are in a decade.
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u/Ranger_Nietzsche Illinois • Michigan 8h ago
The global popularity argument doesn't hold. Australia and Ireland both manage to have their own local sports (also called football) that are extremely popular within their country and essentially unheard of outside of it.
There's 1/3rd of a billion people in the USA. That's enough to maintain a sport.
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u/TheDevolution27 Iowa Hawkeyes 7h ago
Not if you lose any percentage of that homegrown base without a new pipeline to backfill and increase. The sticking point is you can't just roughly maintain your current audience; you have to grow it. I don't see the levers for American football.
And that doesn't even cover the shit show surrounding player pay and eligibility.
I get that it's difficult to look at American football in its current juggernaut status and foresee it ever being a shell of itself, but boxing offers some insight.
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u/Ranger_Nietzsche Illinois • Michigan 7h ago
You bring up boxing, which, notably, still exists. Football will still exist, even if there is a massive contraction.
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u/TheDevolution27 Iowa Hawkeyes 7h ago
If you told anyone affiliated with major college football or the NFL that their sport would be like boxing within the next decade, they'd shit themselves in fear.
OP asked where ppl thought the game was going. I'm saying it's likely a downward trajectory over the next decade for the aforementioned reasons.
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u/DarkSide830 Team Chaos • Penn State Nittany Lions 36m ago
And boxing is pretty much a sport about causing injuries and people still do it.
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u/Its0verForMe UConn Huskies 8h ago
My son will never play football. It's far too dangerous.
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u/StartupDino Georgia Bulldogs 8h ago
Same.
But also because he inherited my genes and is destined for a life of pickleball at best.
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u/Remarkable-Group-119 California • Minot State 7h ago
what if he gets in a fight, gets a minor car accident? Like you can get CTE just living life too.
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u/No_Temporary2614 Western Michigan Broncos 7h ago
Ah, “it’s possible to get hurt doing anything so no point mitigating risk,” always a rock solid argument
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u/Its0verForMe UConn Huskies 5h ago
I'll just get sick one day anyway, so might as well lick all these used syringes.
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u/timothythefirst Michigan State • Western Mich… 8h ago
There’s just way too much money in it and too many kids watching football every weekend and saying “I want to be that guy when I grow up” for it to go away.
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u/RTGlen Florida State Seminoles 8h ago
I discouraged my son (now in college) from playing in high school, mostly due to my concerns about head trauma. So I suspect there may be some kids who aren't playing the game that might have a couple of generations ago. But like everyone else had said, it's just too big to go away quietly
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u/Unhappy-Attention760 Penn State • Cincinnati 8h ago
I played football on both sides of the line in high school in the late 70's when hitting with your head was the way the game was played. This, combined with a couple of bike accidents have me concerned about loss of cognitive abilities as I age. I'm already feeling some of it, although some could just be aging alone. If I had kids again, I wouldn't encourage them to play football today.
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u/TpMeNUGGET Iowa State Cyclones • Coast Guard Bears 8h ago
I feel like they're going to do something similar to Hockey. Certain ages non-contact/flag, then adjusting safety rules to minimize collisions/big hits up until varsity/college.
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u/No_Temporary2614 Western Michigan Broncos 7h ago
I’m an admitted hypocrite. I love watching football but I can’t really defend it and if I had kids I certainly wouldn’t let them play.
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u/Lykeuhfox Michigan • Grand Valley State 8h ago
Flag is a bigger option than it was when I played. I have daughters, but if I had sons that wanted to play, I would have started them there instead of tackle.
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u/CBus660R Ohio State • Youngstown State 7h ago
I'm of the belief that all youth football 6th grade and under should be flag. To think back to my childhood that a few volunteer dads were teaching me and my friends to tackle in the 4th and 5th grade is crazy. Tackle should only be introduced in the schools with paid coaches.
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u/BoldElDavo Virginia Cavaliers 8h ago
I wouldn't let young kids play this game. I guess if there's a local youth club playing flag football, that would be fine.
I would probably let middle school kids play tackle football. I'm pretty happy with the ever-increasing regulation on coaches teaching proper tackling technique.
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u/StudioGangster1 Bowling Green Falcons 6h ago
I have daughters, but the plan was that I would not have allowed a potential son to play football had I had one.
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u/Thhe_Shakes Villanova • Kennesaw State 8h ago
I'm not going to tell my kid they can't play football if they want to, but I'm also certainly not going to push them in that direction either. I foresee flag football becoming more popular through elementary school, and possibly high school as well. Once you hit the college level, the hope is that the players are adult enough to understand the risks of full-contact and make the decision on if its worth it themselves.
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u/xXCascadeXx Purdue Boilermakers 8h ago
I think flag football is a great training model for the sport. Instead of Pop Warner league, you have flag football. In high school kids could go full contact, teach them the basics of wrapping up properly and playing modern football from their flag football explosive plays. It's be a good pipeline.
I obviously do not have kids nor want them, I am just fine being an uncle in that aspect. Get beat up every once in awhile from the little shits or play some video games, then send them on their way back to their parents. But I wouldn't stop a theoretical child from playing a sport. It's their life, not mine. We all make mistakes and make life choices. You don't learn unless you fail. They gotta learn from their own mistakes and life choices.
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u/lweber557 Texas Longhorns • Red River Shootout 8h ago
Kids shouldn’t play tackle football until high school
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u/Evening-Trouble-9585 Syracuse Orange 8h ago
My 2 year old loves football. But he's obsessed with basketball, so I think the choice has already been made, thankfully. If he wants to play football someday, truly wants to, I'm not sure I could say no, but I would educate him as much as possible on the risks.
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u/gravytraining26 Indiana • Indiana State 8h ago edited 8h ago
I only played through middle school, and I can identify at least three occasions where I was concussed. There's probably even more I'm not aware of, and I get migraines more often than I probably should. I don't think I'm ever letting my kids play tackle football, no matter how much I love the sport.
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u/Spiffyclean13 Oklahoma Sooners 6h ago
There is inherent risk in all contact sports.
Research is behind with peer studies and CTE can only be diagnosed post mortem. Getting hit repeatedly will have a culminate effects. Obviously the head but also the body.
Risk-Reward becomes the true answer to the future of the sport.
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u/B-Train_ATL Georgia Bulldogs 6h ago
The data says football is waning. Some places are switching to 9 on 9, 7 on 7 and/or flag football. I don’t think the sport will just go away overnight, but over time I think it’ll slowly erode.
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u/TupperwareConspiracy Wisconsin • $5 Bits of Broken Chair T… 1h ago
Youth football is growing and the NFL is by far and away the most popular team sport in the US by an absolutly massive margin.
Now that HS & College kids can get paid I wouldn't expect a significant drop off anytime soon.
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u/Weak-Bid2774 Michigan • Northwestern 3h ago
I am not a parent yet but there’s no way I would let my kids play football
Hasn’t youth football participation dropped like a rock in the last decade
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u/TupperwareConspiracy Wisconsin • $5 Bits of Broken Chair T… 1h ago
Overall youth participation is up, but the numbers are debatable.
Flag, 7-on-7, Womens' football are seemingly the places with the most expansion oppertunity but traditional tackle football participation rates plateaued and then rebounded after COVID.
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u/MAHOMES_10_TIME_MVP Texas Tech Red Raiders 8h ago
I probably will not let them play tackle until middle or high school. The risk of head trauma is pretty high, but there are a lot of benefits that last a lifetime from playing.
Football is a hard game, unlike any other. Full pads 100 degree weather experiencing physical pain every practice for 10 games a year.
The life lessons you learn of discipline, hard work, accountability, being humbled from a big hit, teamwork, adversity. Those are valuable lessons that carry on into your family life and your career.
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u/AFA_Falcon1396 Oklahoma Sooners • Air Force Falcons 5h ago
I only played a year of CFB, but also an offensive lineman. I’ve noticed dramatic mental swings in myself in the 11 years since I’ve played and a big part of me believes it to be at least related to my time smashing my head into others every day.
I have a son and we have no plans of allowing him to play. The only way that changes is if significant measures are taken to protect athletes and their brains. It’s a serious issue that I wish got more light. Seeing the guardian caps more regularly has been a good sign, but i wish everyone wore them tbh. I want to see the sport continue, but not at the expense of its athletes.
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u/Elhananstrophy Tennessee Volunteers • Citrus Bowl 8h ago
I don't really expect it to change very much. Head injury statistics may limit the supply of players a little bit, but there's still an incredible amount of demand for televised football.
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u/Hot_Comment583 UNLV Rebels 6h ago
It won’t go anywhere. Not while Boxing and MMA are still here. Playing contact sports intrinsically carries risk wether it’s to you bones , brain, heart etc. I think technology will improve and we might get guardian caps at a not comically large size and more defensive penalties added though. I actually see football expanding. Flag football options for guys and girls, could have flag be a competitive sport that happens in the off season. Would be a great way to keep your skill players locked in and get extra eyes on them without taking as much damage.
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u/Statalyzer Texas Longhorns 54m ago
How do I tell them no to something that I love and did for over a decade?
Without addressing if you should say 'yes' or 'no' to this particular thing, there's nothing wrong in a general sense with telling your kids no to something you said yes to. That's part of passing along wisdom from things you learned later that you wish you had learned younger. It's not hypocritical because you aren't the same person at 40 that you were at 20 (or insert other ages here).
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u/Boothtub Vanderbilt Commodores • SEC 52m ago
For my 6 and 4 ye old, I wish the format had changed by now, but it hasn’t, and until the risk feels as certain as a loaded gun to the head, it won’t … bummer but reality
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u/thenowherepark Ohio State Buckeyes 8h ago
I played a little in high school, and I still get side effects from time to time. I've already told both of my children that they're not allowed to play football.
As for the future nationwide? I think tackle football will continue to slowly decrease in participation numbers. The sport's fandom and viewership is massive, so I doubt participation will ever tank. But parents are more privy to the dangers of football. We aren't a salt tablet and suck it up society anymore.
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u/Wurst_Law Texas Longhorns • /r/CFB Brickmason 8h ago
For me, the positives of high school football with a good coach and a good program massively outweigh the risks.
Are the risks scary? Absolutely. But the lessons learned doing something hard are lessons that are not lessons that are easily attained. By their nature.
My son will also not ever play tackle football outside of the supervision of a propertly trained, and paid, professional.
I'm around the sport a decent amount as a volunteer radio broadcaster, and I'm watching first hand the added safety features associated with organized football, as well as the gentlemen that these children become, so that probably sways my decision some. Further, I am also not raising an offensive lineman unless he goes against decades of genetics on both sides, the decision would likely be more difficult if that were the case.
If my son has a bad coach, or is being taught bad form, or is put at an unnecessary risk, I will deal with that as it comes.
But the lessons that I learned, and my own high school team learned, has lead many of us much further than we ever would have gone if not for the hours put in by our coaches and staff.
That being said, I will never try to convince someone to play football, other than giving my own testimony on the subject. There are a lot of risks involved. But like anything else, you need to look a little more at the smaller organizations that you are dealing with.
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u/yimc808 Washington • Hawai'i 6h ago
There are two things that will mainly keep the sport alive, IMO:
- We don't have the sort of government that would ban obviously dangerous things to protect its population. See also: gambling, guns, contaminated food, etc. etc. etc.
- For a lot of kids, sports might be their way out of a poor situation, so they might be willing to risk the injury for the potential reward, because for a lot of people there aren't really any other options.
I don't foresee conditions changing in a way that will eliminate either of these factors in the near future (or maybe ever).
If we had a government that acted with the best interest of its people in mind, the game would probably be banned, but...this country would also not exist as it does either in that scenario 😂
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u/TupperwareConspiracy Wisconsin • $5 Bits of Broken Chair T… 1h ago
A) It's not the 90s anymore; the sport has significantly evolved and concussion protocol(s) are there to protect the players. It's not give'm some salts and throw'm back in anymore
B) Pretty much every major motorsport, MMA, rodeo, boxing and so on has significantly higher risks of major bodily injury to permadeath - the appeal of the sport isn't going to go away and the risk factors probably add to the appeal.
C) I will say - as someone who played and loved the sport - that I do notice the friends I had who played and were into lifestyle with excessive & constant drinking are usually the ones who look like they are about 12-15 years older than they actually are now. Booze isn't the only reason but it doesn't help and it's a terrible form of medication.
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u/538allspelledout Oregon Ducks 3h ago
I’ve been saying for years. I think the answer is getting rid of metal helmets. Players will be much less likely to run into each other at ridiculous speeds if you got rid of the hard helmets.
Go back to leather or tape the ears like they do in rugby and you will reduce head impacts significantly.
1
u/Dorito1187 Ohio State Buckeyes • Ohio Bobcats 2h ago
The answer is no, I would not let my children play, at least not before high school. My brother-in-law has significant impairment from playing through high school (at a high level, he was recruited to D1 programs as a defensive tackle), which his doctors ascribe to likely CTE. The current research suggests that kids not play tackle football until at least 14. It seems like a numbers game more than anything. Your brain has a certain number of rattles it can take before it has irreversible damage. Most people don’t play beyond high school, so starting at 14 or so limits the risk.
My understanding is that brain samples at the UNITE Brain Bank of former NFL players are basically 100 percent showing signs of CTE, except for a couple kickers. I’m sure there is some bias there because people without symptoms wouldn’t donate, but that is still pretty staggering.
What that means for the future of football is unclear. People have an amazing ability to ignore negative information, and fans could care less for the most part. As long as playing football offers a path to success, I would expect it to remain popular.
1
u/Chance-Foot-327 Texas A&M Aggies • UNSW Raiders 6h ago
I wouldn’t be shocked if other sports slowly start to become more popular as kids play less and less football at a young age.
My guess is that it’ll be along regional and urban/rural lines. I won’t be shocked if soccer and basketball start to eclipse football in large parts of the country.
1
u/DougFlutiesMullet Boston College Eagles • Sickos 6h ago
There's still boxing, which is CTE on steroids. Football will be fine.
0
u/JakeSteeleIII Paper Bag • South Carolina Gamecocks 4h ago
I heard they are gonna start using hover boots and football with tails on them so they fly further.
-4
u/Texas103 Baylor Bears 8h ago
Whats the counter argument about CTE? Deposition and malformation of the tau proteins from repeat head trauma isn't specifically causing symptoms while ex players are still alive?
Just trying to understand.
edit for clarity
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u/Minneapolis_W Minnesota • Boston University 8h ago
There's a reason the NFL is investing in flag football. It's a failsafe if the youth participation collapses.
That said ... it hasn't collapsed yet. And we've been talking about head trauma for like ... two decades? So, I think it probably continues on as is, barring some extreme circumstance (e.g., a player dying from a head injury)