Honestly (as a former football player) I find this opinion to reek of pseudo-academic snobbery. You know why football is such a popular sport? Because people love football. More importantly, people love playing football. I understand that not everyone sees the appeal of the sport and it's their right to have their own preferences. But to simply dismiss the passionate pursuits of hundreds of thousands of players across the globe as some engineered gladiator battle by the upper class is absurd. There was football before there was television. If the NFL shut down tomorrow and televised broadcasts were banned, there would still be football. You can condemn the exploitation of players' health in the NFL without creating these gross overgeneralizations of the sport.

Moreover I think it's offensive to imply football is this caste regime as if the rich people are watching the poor people play. Football pervades all income levels. Your rich prep high schools still have a football team. Ivy league schools still have football teams. If anything it is an equalizer because your rich suburban prep school guy lines up next to a dude that grew up in the inner city all the same. And their standing in the team, along with compensation, will be dependent on their performance as opposed to race or economic background. Where else in society is there this level of parity?