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What Would the End of Football Look Like?
What Would the End of Football Look Like? makes some interesting points about Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) and then traces a path for how football interest might dry up.
Comments
Also, it's really funny how they keep trying to make sports safer with more helmets and such. Eventually they'll just play sports in tanks. The real way to solve the problem is to play without any armor or helmets. If you aren't armored, you aren't going to go bashing into people hard enough to hurt them, since you will also hurt yourself. Works for Rugby/Aussie Rules.
The part where you're a bit off is where you say "You don't bash into people hard enough to hurt them" - No, you really do. There is still plenty of injury in rugby/AFL, the thing that prevents more of it is both the rules(Certain tackles are not allowed, for example), a bit of skill(You're not trying to permanently injure them, mostly, but it's not unheard of for club play and professional play), and sheer physical conditioning - they train like they play, and they both play and train full contact. Also, It's one of those sports where half the nation has been playing as a hobby, ranging from pick-up games in the park through to the club level and beyond - for a good chunk of their lives. I'm not huge on the game, but I can still kick, run a ball and tackle competently.
IIRC, there is only one required bit of safety equipment required in both rugby and AFL - I'm pretty sure the rules require you to use a mouthguard. You also have the option of wearing a soft helmet - not like he hardshell helmets you see in gridiron - called a Scrum cap, but it's mostly to protect your ears and head from cuts and scrapes - some players forgo the scrum-cap and simply use a quick wrap with a bit of cloth and electrical tape. It doesn't really do anything for concussive injuries, it just stops you from having your ears torn off, which can be a problem in the scrum.
Y'know, if you're into Gridiron, you should check out some rugby, if you haven't already. The rules are not entirely dissimilar - enough that you'll be able to rapidly grasp the differences - and the games are often enjoyable to watch, if you're into that sort of thing. I suppose once I grokked the rules well enough, I would say I started to enjoy Gridiron as much as Rugby or AFL, which admittedly isn't a huge amount, but I still enjoy a game or three.
Actually, I would watch basket ball if it was "fixed" by having many 5 minute sets, and the winner of each set gets one point. First to 5 points wins. That means you get a "buzzer beating" moment every 5 minutes of play, with a scheduled break for commercials every 5 minutes. Close games would last longer (like in tennis) and if you make it so you need to win by two sets, the close games would go on and on (like in tennis). This would be awesome for advertisers, as the longer the game, the better deal they get. TV schedules won't matter in the future, so longer games would be cool.
Nobody gives a shit about most basket ball games until the last few minutes anyway, and if it's not a close game, there's no tension at all. The set system, borrowed from tennis, solves all the problems.
Someone get on that, please!
There is one possible concern. I wonder if the shot clock timing would need to be modified. I imagine the average time it takes to shoot, coupled with the limitations of the clock (in terms of number of shot attempts each team will get on average) could get a little complicated to balance.
The thing is that right now in basketball they score way too often. A score is not exciting when it happens all the time. If there were less baskets, each individual one would be more exciting. If there were less dunks, each one would be insanely exciting. The game would also be much harder in general making each player and teamwork significantly more important. Right now in the NBA you have teams where only a few star players matter, and the other guys don't have to do anything. If the game were harder you would need all the players to really cooperate to score.
Also, keep the same idea of playing sets.
Another idea, since the court is bigger, add more point lines. 4 point line, 5 point line. Encourage guys to try to throw it from far away. This has a few more effects. One is that it forces the team to play defense over the entire court instead of just half. Two is that it makes the game exciting even if a team is winning by a large margin. Losing by ten? Two five point shots, this thing could be tied up any second. If they try to defend the 5 pointer, maybe it will be really easy to get a bunch of quick two pointers.
In basketball it is not inevitable that a point will be scored. So the suspense is whether or not the team with the ball will score. That suspense is significantly reduced when scoring happens a majority of the time. The non-scoring plays are actually the ones that make the difference. A big steal matters more for winning than a big three pointer.
Actually, the studies I've seen indicated that while the riskier behavior due to the armor and helmets is definitely a contributor to the problems with concussions and such, the actual design of the armor (specifically the helmets) may also be part of the problem. Remember, people used to play football merely with leather helmets and people would sometimes die while playing the game. It was nearly banned as a result and the game was saved by various rules changes including legalizing the forward pass, which is pretty much the key part of the modern game.
However, part of the problem is that too many players/coaches/etc. seem to want armor designed via the "rule of looking cool" instead of the rule of "being the best to protect you with." I'd argue that with modern rules and the old-fashioned leather helmets, for example, football may be safer than it is now. If nothing else, people won't be spearing each other. Of course, we can do better than leather helmets with modern technology -- and the current hard plastic shell helmets were an attempt to do so, but it's obvious they don't work as well as intended. They do look cool, though!
A few years ago, someone came up with a helmet design that was basically all dense shock-absorbing foam (think Nerf) except for the face mask with no hard shell on the outside. There were even a couple of football players (some guy for the Buffalo Bills in the early 90's, for example) that played with them because they had serious problems with the hard shell helmets. However, no one really used them because they didn't look as "cool" as the hard shell designs. However, as the inventor of these foam helmets demonstrated, if you whack your unprotected knee with a foam helmet, you'll just be like "hey, a nerf helmet hit my knee," where as doing the same with a hard shell helmet would cause a fair bit of pain.
Switching to these foam helmets (along with perhaps using similar materials/technology for the rest of a football player's armor) may go a long way in mitigating the injuries caused by the game.
Also, I do recall that, and I recall the armor design being part of the problem.
It's a tricky balance to achieve, really. Honestly, I'm all for the Rugby school of "Pads? Where we're going, we don't need pads."
Though, it would be worth investigating the injury rates and types between the two sports.
However, you put neck braces and big foam plates on a Gridiron player? He can't play!
As far as the foam helmets I described, I haven't seen them made out of foam only, but I have seem foam padding placed on the outside of standard helmets to give players who needed it extra protection: