Millenials to end football?

[INDYSTAR188]

A friend of mine compared America to the Roman Empire and said that Football was our gladiatorial sport.

I wonder if football were to somehow die out, what sport would replace it in our society? I think that maybe soccer would have a positive popularity growth spurt, which would make me happy.

[Coidzor]

Originally Posted by INDYSTAR188

A friend of mine compared America to the Roman Empire and said that Football was our gladiatorial sport.

I wonder if football were to somehow die out, what sport would replace it in our society? I think that maybe soccer would have a positive popularity growth spurt, which would make me happy.

It already is, in part due to our changing demographics. Having that further tie with the rest of the world might even be a good thing. Maybe.

[INDYSTAR188]

Originally Posted by Coidzor

It already is, in part due to our changing demographics. Having that further tie with the rest of the world might even be a good thing. Maybe.

I think that they're going to have to get rid of the flops before most Americans will take it seriously. Personally, I really enjoy watching and playing soccer, but I can't ever talk about it to most of my sports fan friends because they just talk about how boring they find 1-0 games and orange slices.

[Soras Teva Gee]

If you are too young to meaningfully remember the 80s, Reagan, and the end of the Cold War but old enough to meaningfully remember 9/11 you are a Millenial Generation representative. Because you were coming of age when the new millennium began. (And if you are still in high school right now you are the next generation, I'm betting on "iGeneration" winning out for your name)

And I think the article that started this might have a point before it tacks on nonsense philosophy. We the generation that coincide with the internet growth, cheap electronics, and cable television being normal had far more media options open to us then any previous generation. A lot of us probably didn't have to watch football with our parents if we didn't want to, we could go to another part of the house and turn on MTV or Nick or whatever. For that matter we're the first generation that grew up with soccer moms.

It only follows that we will have differing tastes in sports then previous generations, which could well create a sort of negative feedback effect on American football. First in decreasing the fanbase as a percentage of the population while the baby boomers age and say can't go to games anymore. Second over the longer term if we aren't carrying on football to our children where will the ground level interest come from, ergo where will the next generation of players come from?

Now yes there's always likely to be some interest, but I would point out that football is a pretty manpower and equipment heavy a sport. Would high-schools support it if its popularity waned?

Certainly not garunteed but I think the 21st Century is definitely asserting its own unique social-cultural paradigm, nothing should be considered invulnerable right now. Have to see in a few decades. This stuff takes time, the 20th Century can be said to have only begun as late as post-WWII, though just as fairly earlier then that.

[snoopy13a]

Originally Posted by INDYSTAR188

A friend of mine compared America to the Roman Empire and said that Football was our gladiatorial sport.

I wonder if football were to somehow die out, what sport would replace it in our society? I think that maybe soccer would have a positive popularity growth spurt, which would make me happy.

The comparision of the USA to ancient Rome is cliche. Anyway, football can be easily replaced by baseball, basketball, hockey, and soccer.

Ironically, soccer has quite a bit of brain injuries. Basically, from heading the ball and from collisions on the field. Out of all of American high school sports, girls soccer has the 2nd most concussions (football is first).

[Ulm11]

Originally Posted by Coidzor

Honestly if we could get rid of the idea of the boy's club it'd help with a lot of that and the other social ills that it brings.

What do you mean by getting rid of the boy's club?

[snoopy13a]

Originally Posted by Ulm11

What do you mean by getting rid of the boy's club?

Not sure. But as someone who played football in high school I'm wondering...

[Coidzor]

Originally Posted by Ulm11

What do you mean by getting rid of the boy's club?

The culture of unnecessary and harmful machismo. The thing that tells people to push children to perform when they're already injured so that they cripple themselves for life for the amusement of old men who are overly emotionally invested in some abstract idea of their own youth that requires such things to be fulfilled.

[Ulm11]

Originally Posted by Coidzor

The culture of unnecessary and harmful machismo. The thing that tells people to push children to perform when they're already injured so that they cripple themselves for life for the amusement of old men who are overly emotionally invested in some abstract idea of their own youth that requires such things to be fulfilled.

Then we have very different views on the matter. The coaches and the parents are somewhat responsible for the push, and in specific cases it can be taken to far, but that is not the whole story. One of the prime reasons boy's keep on playing sports is that they are one of the few places left that create a sense of achievement and camaraderie as sports, and outside of Football the only sport I know of that allows everybody to play according to their own ability and body type is Rugby.

[pendell]

Originally Posted by Coidzor

The culture of unnecessary and harmful machismo. The thing that tells people to push children to perform when they're already injured so that they cripple themselves for life for the amusement of old men who are overly emotionally invested in some abstract idea of their own youth that requires such things to be fulfilled.

I'm not sure this is entirely fair. I'm not quite sure what kind of axiom it is, but it seems to me much sports and military basic training is based around the idea that humans are often capable of a lot more than they believe themselves capable of, if they can only get past the initial discomfort of pushing outside their standard tolerances.

I'm speaking a bit out of turn here, but I suspect that anytime you do something with your body above your normal , it's going to hurt. But if you've correctly calibrated the amount of effort, eventually it becomes the new normal. And now you're ready for pushing to a greater height.

It's not a bad way of learning how to achieve things. And it's a lesson that has ramifications far outside the range of athletics.

I also think that the lesson that you can persevere and press on in spite of difficulty and in spite of pain, to master your body and make it the slave of your mind, is ALSO a valuable lesson.

There is such a thing as overtraining . And there is such a thing as medical conditions brought on by too much stress. But I think that what you're proposing is a cure worse than the disease: To set up a situation where children are trained never to attempt anything if it hurts, never to challenge their assumptions or their expectations. Never learning that they are a lot more capable than even they give themselves credit for.

If we're going to teach kids that SOME pain is a necessary precursor to achievement, that means there are going to be medical cases when we wrongly calibrate what is expected and someone gets hurt. I believe , so long as these do not occur with great frequency, that we should consider this acceptable losses. The alternative of a society where we train children to avoid anything even slightly uncomfortable, painful, or dangerous has far worse implications. In my view.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Coidzor]

Originally Posted by pendell

I'm not sure this is entirely fair. I'm not quite sure what kind of axiom it is, but it seems to me much sports and military basic training is based around the idea that humans are often capable of a lot more than they believe themselves capable of, if they can only get past the initial discomfort of pushing outside their standard tolerances.

I'm speaking a bit out of turn here, but I suspect that anytime you do something with your body above your normal , it's going to hurt. But if you've correctly calibrated the amount of effort, eventually it becomes the new normal. And now you're ready for pushing to a greater height.

It's not a bad way of learning how to achieve things. And it's a lesson that has ramifications far outside the range of athletics.

I also think that the lesson that you can persevere and press on in spite of difficulty and in spite of pain, to master your body and make it the slave of your mind, is ALSO a valuable lesson.

There is such a thing as overtraining . And there is such a thing as medical conditions brought on by too much stress. But I think that what you're proposing is a cure worse than the disease: To set up a situation where children are trained never to attempt anything if it hurts, never to challenge their assumptions or their expectations. Never learning that they are a lot more capable than even they give themselves credit for.

If we're going to teach kids that SOME pain is a necessary precursor to achievement, that means there are going to be medical cases when we wrongly calibrate what is expected and someone gets hurt. I believe , so long as these do not occur with great frequency, that we should consider this acceptable losses. The alternative of a society where we train children to avoid anything even slightly uncomfortable, painful, or dangerous has far worse implications. In my view.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

I'm talking about not properly treating repetitive stress injuries and turning sprains into torn ligaments that will never heal properly even after thousands of dollars are put into them.

Not a little bit of pain because exercise can lead to sore muscles.

Yes, that's intersecting with healthcare so it can't bear the sole blame for it, but the system as I've seen it and experienced its treatment of those I care about leaves a lot to be desired and takes the wrongheaded view that all pain and injury are good things more often than not until a player is forced to be sidelined because they're crippled or some official twists their arm.

Maybe it's changed dramatically in the half decade since I stopped having anything to do with it though.

Originally Posted by Ulm11

One of the prime reasons boy's keep on playing sports is that they are one of the few places left that create a sense of achievement and camaraderie as sports, and outside of Football the only sport I know of that allows everybody to play according to their own ability and body type is Rugby.

What's that got to do with what I said though? The "boys club" here is being used to both represent the excesses and lack of policing and checks on said excesses as well as the culture when it gets into outright abuse and crime. Didn't particularly want to discuss those last two directly though.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Originally Posted by Coidzor

I'm talking about not properly treating repetitive stress injuries and turning sprains into torn ligaments that will never heal properly even after thousands of dollars are put into them.

Not a little bit of pain because exercise can lead to sore muscles.

Yes, that's intersecting with healthcare so it can't bear the sole blame for it, but the system as I've seen it and experienced its treatment of those I care about leaves a lot to be desired and takes the wrongheaded view that all pain and injury are good things more often than not until a player is forced to be sidelined because they're crippled or some official twists their arm.

Maybe it's changed dramatically in the half decade since I stopped having anything to do with it though.



What's that got to do with what I said though? The "boys club" here is being used to both represent the excesses and lack of policing and checks on said excesses as well as the culture when it gets into outright abuse and crime. Didn't particularly want to discuss those last two directly though.

This confirms my suspicion that your opinion on the matter is colored by bias.

You've had a bad experience with one football program and are assuming that's how things are done in all football programs.

I don't blame you for having such a bias. I know I go absolutely bat-sh*t (forgive the colorful language) if anyone brings harm to a member of my family, and I can seriously hold a grudge, but pushing a biased opinion on others rarely ends well.

[Coidzor]

Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera

This confirms my suspicion that your opinion on the matter is colored by bias.

You've had a bad experience with one football program and are assuming that's how things are done in all football programs.

I don't blame you for having such a bias. I know I go absolutely bat-sh*t (forgive the colorful language) if anyone brings harm to a member of my family, and I can seriously hold a grudge, but pushing a biased opinion on others rarely ends well.

I've collected bad experiences with many sports programs in several different states, not just football. I saw it in the various sex scandals in the past decade from the highschool to college to professional level.

I'm not that much of a shut-in that I've only known people at one single school.

I'm thinking there's some kind of continued fundamental misunderstanding here of what you think I'm pushing on anyone.

edit: I'd like an end to corruption, tolerance of corruption, and the reasons people tolerate corruption (winning at all costs extended beyond the rules and the playing field, mostly, a sort of dark twist or mirror to the art of war or kobayashi maru) because getting rid of that blight would make it more balanced and able to care about the players.

Is it even possible? Probably not. Would it ever be attempted? No, never. I still see getting rid of it as a good move though.

And I'm frankly confused, because I must admit I've never run into the idea of a "boy's club" as good or even neutral thing, not even in the Little Rascals.

Edit2: So, to hopefully clear up a bit of my earlier verbal missteps, I see cheating, abusing/disregarding the health of the players, and the culture of shielding wrongdoers from justice as all arising from a common group of sources. I acknowledge that, yes, I may be overly generous in the overlap I'm allowing, but well, this isn't a subject especially near and dear to my heart or anything so I didn't have a prepared segment. Well, ok, my seething hatred of corruption and abuse of authority is near and dear to my heart.

[Starbuck_II]

Originally Posted by pendell

At least, that's the contention of this article

So NFL taken over by NTFL (National Tag Football League)?

[Kelb_Panthera]

Originally Posted by Coidzor

I've collected bad experiences with many sports programs in several different states, not just football. I saw it in the various sex scandals in the past decade from the highschool to college to professional level.

I'm not that much of a shut-in that I've only known people at one single school.

I'm thinking there's some kind of continued fundamental misunderstanding here of what you think I'm pushing on anyone.

edit: I'd like an end to corruption, tolerance of corruption, and the reasons people tolerate corruption (winning at all costs extended beyond the rules and the playing field, mostly, a sort of dark twist or mirror to the art of war or kobayashi maru) because getting rid of that blight would make it more balanced and able to care about the players.

Is it even possible? Probably not. Would it ever be attempted? No, never. I still see getting rid of it as a good move though.

And I'm frankly confused, because I must admit I've never run into the idea of a "boy's club" as good or even neutral thing, not even in the Little Rascals.

Edit2: So, to hopefully clear up a bit of my earlier verbal missteps, I see cheating, abusing/disregarding the health of the players, and the culture of shielding wrongdoers from justice as all arising from a common group of sources. I acknowledge that, yes, I may be overly generous in the overlap I'm allowing, but well, this isn't a subject especially near and dear to my heart or anything so I didn't have a prepared segment. Well, ok, my seething hatred of corruption and abuse of authority is near and dear to my heart.

See now, all that goes way beyond just football. Those are definitely things that need to be watched for and prevented, but abolishing any one sport isn't going to accomplish jack. Abolishing all sports isn't really a viable option either. Competition is part of human nature, and sports give people that feel that part of their nature more keenly than others a controlled, and relatively safe outlet.

Unfortunately, as long as competition is part of our nature, there will be people willing to go to any lengths to win. That's where your corruption comes from. Ultimately the only way to stamp out corruption completely is to have no rules to circumvent. I think we can all agree that's a bad idea.

[Coidzor]

Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera

See now, all that goes way beyond just football. Those are definitely things that need to be watched for and prevented, but abolishing any one sport isn't going to accomplish jack. Abolishing all sports isn't really a viable option either. Competition is part of human nature, and sports give people that feel that part of their nature more keenly than others a controlled, and relatively safe outlet.

Well then you're thinking I'm arguing something that I was never arguing. The closest I got to that was casting doubts on whether Football would be able to become the number 1 american sport again after having been banned in a hypothetical scenario.

And, really, it's quite possible that Association Football will become number one in time anyway.

Originally Posted by Kelb_Panthera

Unfortunately, as long as competition is part of our nature, there will be people willing to go to any lengths to win. That's where your corruption comes from. Ultimately the only way to stamp out corruption completely is to have no rules to circumvent. I think we can all agree that's a bad idea.

Actual punishment, consequences, and efforts against it certainly wouldn't make things worse though.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Originally Posted by Coidzor

Well then you're thinking I'm arguing something that I was never arguing. The closest I got to that was casting doubts on whether Football would be able to become the number 1 american sport again after having been banned in a hypothetical scenario.

And, really, it's quite possible that Association Football will become number one in time anyway.

In that case, I apologize for mistaking you sir.

Actual punishment, consequences, and efforts against it certainly wouldn't make things worse though.

Agreed.

[pendell]

*Ponders a world without football, and visualizes a possible future as follows:*

Rule #1: You do not talk about football club.


Respectfully,

Brian P.

[INDYSTAR188]

In regards to the popularity of sports in America I would like to compare the crappy Thursday Night Football game yesterday (Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs Minnesota Vikings) to the ongoing 2013 World Series (San Francisco Giants vs Detroit Tigers) and also a typical 'game of the week' MLS game (they did have an impressive 66,000 fans in attendance).

So, the NFL on a night full of other stuff to watch still did almost as good as the World Series. I myself am a big MLS fan (I support the Portland Timbers!) but (to me) it feels like a niche sport here. It's cool to go to and you might even have a circle of friends who are all big into it, but you cannot get it regularly on tv and it gets almost no national sports coverage. The point I'm trying to make is that we're a very long way off from anything coming close to being as popular as the NFL.

*Interesting fun fact though... the MLS has a better game attendance average than the NBA or the NHL.

[Aedilred]

Originally Posted by INDYSTAR188

*Interesting fun fact though... the MLS has a better game attendance average than the NBA or the NHL.

That is probably at least in part because indoor arenas will have a smaller average crowd capacity than a football/soccer stadium.

[McStabbington]

Two points of order. First, the article doesn't say the problem is Millenials. It says that the parents of Millenials won't let their children play, which disrupts the feeding system. The parents of Millenials tend to be younger members of Generation X (appx. 1964-1982) and the older members of Generation Y (appx. 1982-2001).

Second, while the NFL would certainly like you believe that more and better equipment can fix the problem, that's really not the solution, because in the immortal words of Scotty, ya canna change the laws of physics. Basically, the problem is Newton's First Law of Motion: when you stop a body by colliding with it, as most tackles do, you don't stop the brain from continuing its momentum. What stops it is the skull. Most of the research being done now shows that most of the damage is being done by repetitive, sub-concussive brain trauma, which is what happens when you get hit over and over and over again, forcing your brain to bang into the skull over and over and over. Which is terrifying for the NFL, because a) there is no equipment that can slow a brain's momentum inside the brain case, b) current health measures are geared entirely towards getting people out of the game once they've suffered a concussion rather than dealing with sub-concussive trauma, and c) the only real way to deal with it would be to limit snap counts for players, which means either shortening games or vastly increasing team sizes and thereby cutting into their profit margins.

Having said that, I think the story is true but the use of generational language is just to increase page views. Right now the NFL is probably one of the two or three most-viewed and most-profitable professional sports organizations on the planet. But at the turn of last century, you could easily have said the same thing about professional boxing, and in 1940 you could have said the same thing about Major League Baseball. Disrupting the feeder system would have a huge impact on the quality of athlete the NFL could get access to, which in turns greatly impacts the level of play and the level of product. But being a member of Generation X or Y has nothing to do with it.

[Coidzor]

Well, would you look at that SMBC Strip?

[Renegade Paladin]

Originally Posted by Coidzor

Well, would you look at that SMBC Strip?

Yes. Yes I would.