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Oh, this is going to be something.
Science is about to remake the character of the American man.
Because the science says that the inescapable likelihood is that the people who supply most of America’s diversion and entertainment are, literally, getting their brains bashed in. This is not a generalized and remote outcome, like the chance of getting killed if you go to war. If you play major league football, you’ll get massive brain damage. In other words, you can’t play major league football. And probably not so advisable to play high school or college football either.
That set of ineluctable facts was the conclusion of a study released this week. The details are as follows: 878 former NFL players died between 2016 and 2021. Researchers from Harvard Medical School obtained 235 of their brains. 215 showed evidence of C.T.E. or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, an advanced brain disease that can only be diagnosed post-mortem. Of 878 football-playing brains, we know that 215, or one fourth, had severe brain damage. If the 215 to 235 ratio held for the entire 878 brains… well… that’s basically everybody.
Football. Over. Over.
The NFL is the most successful sports league of all time, generating windful profits for itself and its team owners. The NFL is the most profitable form of current media programming, supporting network and local television, increasingly contributing to streaming platforms, and vital to the marketers who support major league football programming. In effect, the NFL is the media business.
More broadly, major league football has become, over two generations, a central cultural driver, one of the few experiences shared across the national spectrum. There is a further analysis in which you could argue that major league football has anchored the growth of the entire culture of U.S. sports—and that it squarely tilts toward Sunbelt, manosphere, and Trump-style identity and politics.
And now it has to end. Has to. Play and go ga-ga or don’t play. That’s the choice. No choice.
The end will be resisted, but it is certain.
But not pretty.
For fun, or a splash of ironic cold water, you ought to revisit early episodes of Mad Men. The plot point is cigarettes—one of the most significant consumer goods in the U.S., supporting not only vast corporate interests, but the media industry, too—would, it was suddenly undeniable, kill you. Here though, with all those doomed men sucking down their Lucky Strikes, were the arguments, rationalizations, spin, and denial that are the default in the face of an unpalatable and confusing reality.
Much of life is, of course, a negotiation between an abstract and unpromising reality and immediate gratification.
But the overwhelming certainty of disease and death really clarifies things. Not Russian Roulette, but a definite bullet in the brain.
So, again, no way out. Football and the NFL… over, done with, kaput, finis.
How long will it take?
Players, the most exposed, won’t be the first to flee. They’ll be negotiating with themselves, another season, another two, playing out a contract…
Owners won’t immediately fold—although billion-dollar losses are their future.
The league will hire its own scientists, doctors, and PR people—at least until they are hauled before Congress.
Premium advertisers will be the first to go. No big-budget brand wants to be associated with brain damage. The Super Bowl? Brain Damage Bowl! The leading brands will be replaced by B and C and shit-kicking brands—paying less.
And with less ad dollars, the seemingly limitless budgets of television and streamers for football rights will get tighter and tighter.
Most NFL network deals run out in 2033. New negotiations will start 2029-ish, but in the face of uncertainty, worry, and bad press.
Football is that curious game. You can’t really play it. At least you, the American man over thirty, can’t. You can only watch it. An entirely passive sport. With great pageantry and production details, we’ve created a gladiatorial spectacle of ruinous force and impact, 300-pound men concussively hitting each other with 100G of acceleration.
Women everywhere will be saying I told you so.
Imagine…can you? America without football.
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