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Comment by BearGoesChirp | Hacker News Reader

>I just can't support the NFL.

I'm not sure what the NFL does that's wrong. Their players get significant fame, are consenting adults, and get pay checks that many would trade even more of their health for. It is the college level, and especially the high school level, that I see the major problems at. When you have kids, or even people who aren't paid, risking their health it crosses a significant line. If college players were paid, and if playing below 18 (or even 16) was banned, it wouldn't be a big problem for me.

Edit: As someone else pointed out, the suppressing information is wrong. I wasn't considering that side of things.

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My main issues with the NFL and why I can't support them are

1) NFL knew about the risks and hid them and in some cases deliberately deceived the players about said risks. I seem to recall that only a couple years ago the NFL told the players that with adequate rest, there will be no long-lasting effects from a concussion -- something that has been shown to not be the case.

2) The NFL will go after anyone who releases medical research raising questions about football and CTE. And I don't mean just refuting the evidence, they've gone after the doctors and scientists personally

I don't fault any player in the NFL for wanting the fame and fortune, or playing. But they should also receive all the information that's available as to the risks and dangers associated with playing so they can make their own decision.

Can you provide a few examples of the NFL going after doctors and scientists, and clarify what that means?

See Dr Omalu research about CTE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennet_Omalu

There is a movie (biopic not totally accurate) : Concussion

Thanks, this looks like a good start.

I am some random person on the internet, so caveat emptor. That being said, my girlfriend has a family friend who works in health research. Since she was looking for a new job in roughly the same field, she reached out and exchanged a few emails, had coffee. Normal networking stuff. One of the projects that the family friend was involved with was doing concussion research for the NFL in the aftermath of the PBS's League Denial, and Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru's work more generally.

Fast forward a few months after the exchanges, she was included on an email from that family friend where the they complained that they should've known better to work on this research and that they were enraged that the conclusions were being suppressed / minimized.

> I'm not sure what the NFL does that's wrong.

I don't think that's a particularly strong stance to take. The NFL has been fairly active in trying to dismiss or ignore this evidence. They are not merely standing by the sidelines.

One recent thing the NFL has done is bullied NIH researchers in concussion research in order to divert funding to their own NFL researchers.[0] Serious questions have been raised about the independence of those researchers. It's like Big Tobacco all over again.

There have been a number of other instances where the NFL has tried to discredit or hide concussion research that details how dangerous Football is. [1]

Besides paying their players, the NFL actively targets kids and amateurs through marketing. They buy the merchandise and become long term fans. By hiding and dismissing the concussion research they are choosing profits over safety.

All of this would be okay if the true dangers of football were fully transparent. Adults can consent to risks when they know the risks they are facing. In this case, the NFL has hidden that risk.

[0]: http://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/15667689/congression...

[1]: http://www.espn.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/14711203/nfl-donatio...

Would you be OK allowing two consenting adults to fight to the death for pay? Most people would not be for allowing this. A lot of people are willing to work in very risky environments because they feel they have no alternative. Should companies be allowed to have dangerous work environments because there are people desperate enough to be willing to work in them?

I don't think this is a black-and-white kind of area. Plenty of miners felt a lot of pride in their work and wouldn't have given it up if they didn't have to, but mining is inherently more dangerous than sitting at a desk.

So, while companies should have workers' comp and provide helmets on the job, it doesn't mean that the risk needs to be zero. Dangerous jobs tend to be well-compensated, so it either comes down to risk tolerance or cultural factors (something like "my father was a miner and I live in coal country") more than desperation.

> Plenty of miners felt a lot of pride in their work and wouldn't have given it up if they didn't have to, but mining is inherently more dangerous than sitting at a desk.

Could you cite some evidence that this is a widespread attitude? My knowledge of miners, which is very little, says something much different.

> Dangerous jobs tend to be well-compensated

I'm not sure that's true. In the list of high-paying jobs that money-motivated people aspire to, I usually don't see coal miner (or any miner), soldier, police officer in dangerous neighborhood, logger, deep sea fisherman or drug dealer listed.

Here in Australia, mining is definitely on the list of "high paying jobs people aspire to", especially for those where education is a limiting factor; and even then, the pay can be excellent, and it can be fascinating work and some of the positions require advanced degrees or training as well.

> Would you be OK allowing two consenting adults to fight to the death for pay?

Given that scenario as stated? Sure, I'm all for it. Take away the gloves in boxing and we're pretty close to that.

I'd be concerned about the negative incentives that could potentially exploit lower income people, but on its own I don't have a problem with it.

I personally wouldn't do it, and I don't think I'd enjoy watching it, but I'm of the opinion that:

1. If it occurs a lot, there is a market for it,

2. Given a market for it, we should explore allowing and heavily regulating it, including negative externalities, rather than banning it and pushing it to a black market.

AIUI bare knuckle boxing is less dangerous than the big time stuff. Gloves protect the boxer doing the punching from breaking their fingers/hands, enabling them to do more damage to their opponents. You ain't punching a skull with your bare knuckles and hurting the other party much.

Ah, my mistake I suppose. I understood bare knuckle boxing is dangerous for the hands, but I also believed it was dangerous for the other party.

You'd be OK allowing two people to fight to the death for pay? I'm stunned. You are the only person I know of that would be OK living in a society that allowed two people to fight until one of them dies for pay. I'm glad your view is not a popular one.

We pretty much already do...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_due_to_injuries...

Those are not fights to the death. They are deaths due to fighting. There is a significant difference. We do not allow two people to fight to the death for money. I'm surprised that anyone would be in favor of allowing it to be legal.

>Would you be OK allowing two consenting adults to fight to the death for pay?

If we are talking where death is a risk but not a definite, then we do allow such jobs. At what point do you consider the harm too bad to allow and would we really consistently apply that standard?

Beyond the suppressing information part, I think it's still reasonable to decline to watch.

Everyone is a consenting adult, I'm not saying "letting people tackle each other" is criminal or unethical. (Though as you say, mandatory football in gym class would be a different story.) The only thing here that ought to be legally actionable is knowingly hiding risks.

But we're talking about a spectator sport. I think a lot of people would feel sort of queasy if they saw a "good hit" and thought "wow, that guy just got a bit of brain damage". It's pretty reasonable to say "I want to see people perform challenging athletics, I don't want to see them destroy their minds". So the NFL might 'deserve' to fail because of this no matter how open and transparent they are.

So I'm a New Zealander who lives in Australia: I'm incredibly biased; but the best "hits" that are an absolute spectacle to watch in Rugby Union for me are the perfectly executed tackles, with zero head contact between the players and usually the ball carrier doesn't hit their head on the turf -- now Union still has a lot of the same risks and damage done to players so it's not perfect, but I find the difference between what's considered a "great hit" between the two kind of interesting.

Also, the biggest tackles I experienced playing first-grade union for the Gold Coast dolphins (before I stopped to become a referee) didn't hurt! A perfectly executed powerful tackle stops you in your tracks, looks amazingly impressive, but was reasonably safe.

You're much more likely to get a head injury from either an illegal tackle (that'd result in a red card, removal from the game and a "trial" of sorts before a tribunal) or from being at the bottom of a ruck and being stepped/stomped on

> I'm not sure what the NFL does that's wrong.

Because they suppressed evidence?

> and get pay checks that many would trade even more of their health for.

In addition to the other comments about suppressing information. They have led you to believe this is the case. You should really find out how compensation in the NFL works because it is mindblowing. Do they get paid more than most bluecollar jobs? Absolutely.

A lot of NFL contracts are back loaded and the NFL tries everything in their power to make sure their players don't see the full payout. Most of the non-famous players are paid weekly and can be cut at any time.

MLB and NBA players have much stronger protections when it comes to salary.

Why do you have a major problem with consenting adults at college level, but not at professional level? How is consenting-for-money any different to consenting-in-hopes-of-money?

As for fame, which players get significant fame? Every team has over fifty guys on their roster - how many of those could ever be named by a random member of the public who isn't a diehard fan of that same team? The linemen are the ones that cop the brunt of the big hits - how many linemen ever get known by name?

>Why do you have a major problem with consenting adults at college level, but not at professional level? How is consenting-for-money any different to consenting-in-hopes-of-money?

Because often the offers are made and accepted when the person is underage and the collusion to keep there being no pay. If colleges didn't get involved at all until people were 18 and players were paid I wouldn't have an issue.

It is like the difference between a college student who meets and dates an older individual vs a college student who dates someone who knew and groomed them while they were still a child. Both may be legal, but far more people will be appalled at the second one.

> when the person is underage

This feels like post-hoc reasoning, given that the parents are involved, and that the person can also stop, transfer, whatever on their own later on.

> while they were still a child

Referring to 17-year-olds as 'children' is simply being disingenuous. You can join the army at 17.

> Referring to 17-year-olds as 'children' is simply being disingenuous. You can join the army at 17.

The second statement in no way supports the first.

They are the only one of the big four in the US with non-guaranteed contracts. And the one with players by far the likeliest to get badly hurt.

Not to mention (1) many players don't actually get paid that well; (2) careers are often quite short; (3) unless you're a liar, you understand what happens when a player gets hurt but if they don't play, they don't get paid... Surprising no-one who doesn't work for the NFL, players play hurt. Or hide concussions.

Also, the NFL uses College and High School Football as free development leagues. If HS and CFB didn't exist, where would the NFL get their players?

This point is critically important because TBI in developing brains is especially disastrous with lifetime implications. This isn't a risk/reward discussion because TBI's are basically everyone if they're playing hard. So there's guaranteed downsides.

Children should not be doing this, ever.

http://www.biausa.org/brain-injury-children.htm#recovery

This...doesn't quite compute to me. Professional football was born out of amateur athletic clubs and college clubs. The lack of a development league for the NFL is lamentable for a few reasons, but I don't think it's insidious that people play for free then get the attention of the NFL, if only because most people play football because they enjoy the sport.

If HS and CFB didn't exist, there would be no NFL, because it would mean that everyone stopped caring about football.

(Disclosure: I live near Pittsburgh; even though I never played, the sport runs deep in the roots of the area!)

They need to get the college sports off of national TV and set up a farm team system. But that's a debate for another time probably.

College football is more popular than the NFL. Every game is critically important in college which adds to the excitement. Pro's you can lose a few and still make the SuperBowl.

The RedSkins can't fill their stadium in a major market. Try to get Alabama tickets ... or NotreDame ... or Penn State all in minuscule markets.

I don't know about data on popularity, but now college football has a playoff system too so they can bounce back from a loss (but probably only one).

Years ago the Redskins always filled- they've just sucked for so long people find better things to do with their Sundays (disclaimer-am a fan from long time back).

The Patriots on the other hand now fill their stadium (I live in the Boston area now). They didn't use to do that.

So it may depend on how well the team is doing.

EDIT: Except for Tennessee. Those fans are crazy.

NFL tv ratings dwarf college though.

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