Forgive me for pointing out the obvious — the NFL has a concussion problem. Much in the way that baseball has performance-enhancing drugs and the NBA has tanking, concussions remain the one issue that will not go away for the shield. Nor should it go away; protecting the health and well-being of its athletes has to remain a top priority for the NFL.
The storm surrounding concussions in the NFL only intensified with the release of a study conducted by the Department of Veterans Affairs and Boston University. This study looked at the brains of 91 former NFL players, all of whom volunteered their organs after death, and found that 87 of these players had evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Prevalent medical opinion suggests repetitive head trauma leads to CTE, which correlates with memory loss, depression and dementia.
And on Christmas, Columbia Pictures will release “Concussion,” a new movie starring Will Smith that homes in on the NFL’s handling of head injuries over the years. Ironically, ads have been running during games themselves.
It’s fairly clear that progress has been made in preventing the next concussion, and I suspect more progress will come in preventing the first one as well. But so far, there’s one function over on Park Avenue that seemingly hasn’t had to stress all that much about the concussion issue — the marketing department. Have you checked Nielsen ratings this year for NFL games? The Carolina-Dallas Thanksgiving game drew more than 32 million viewers, up 2 percent from Philadelphia-Dallas last year. For the week of Nov. 16, NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” was (again) the most watched network prime-time show. Twitter regularly spikes around NFL action.
The fundamental question: Why hasn’t the concussion crisis demonstrated itself through the fans? Imagine watching someone whip themselves over and over, a la Silas in “The Da Vinci Code.” Few people would watch that scene for the joy and exhilaration of it. But every time two players collide in an NFL game, that’s one more act of masochism that could lead to mental illness and early death. And fans continue to watch, even seeking out replays of the most vicious hits.
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Rams quarterback Case Keenum stayed on the field after suffering a concussion on Nov. 22.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
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The players are beginning to understand the risk that years of NFL action can have on the rest of their lives. Guys like Chris Borland and Patrick Willis looked at the case studies provided by Junior Seau and Mike Webster and decided to step away from the game. On the flip side, players such as Case Keenum (Rams) and Malcolm Jenkins (Eagles) sustained concussions during the game yet remained on the field, despite the league’s new protocol involving independent neurologists and observers meant to spot players who seem affected by a head injury. “I kind of had an idea, but my symptoms went away,” Jenkins said, “so I kind of kept it to myself.”
Parents have also caught on. PBS, outspoken on the topic of the NFL and concussions, cites a Bloomberg Politics poll pointing out that 50 percent of Americans wouldn’t want their sons playing football, a percentage that grows to 62 percent when isolating college-educated, affluent households.
So, why don’t the fans shudder instead of cheer? The answer lies in the psychology, and researchers had a lot of it figured out decades ago. Citing an article in the Virginia Quarterly Review written in 1976 by Burling Lowrey, the piece’s title captures the essence perfectly: “The Dehumanization Of Sports.” The article astutely points out that in ancient times, e.g. Greece, athletes “represented well-rounded human beings who reflected the humanistic and religious values of their particular societies.” However, the football players “are locked into a system that is perfectly capable of producing thousands of zombie-like, one-dimensional creatures.” We aren’t rooting for players; we are rooting for zombies. And should one zombie get hurt, there comes the next zombie to fill in.
Ironically, the NFL’s own stringent policies contribute to this dehumanizing of the athlete. Players are not allowed to stand out. Different colored socks? No way. Armbands? You pay a fine. Fans don’t get to develop a relationship with the players like in other sports. So we don’t get to feel for them when they get hurt, and we don’t get to worry about them getting hurt. I have watched the NFL for almost 30 years. I don’t think twice when I see a wide receiver get blindsided, but I cringe watching my son jump off of a swing.
Lowrey’s article also cites the dependency fans have on sports, in this case the NFL. Basing his point on some of Orwell’s writings, Lowrey talks about sports addiction: “… the need for a ‘fix’ becomes more urgent. The club owners and the television networks, with dollar signs dangling before their eyes, oblige by providing enough ‘fixes’ to millions of sports fans.” So what are a few casualties among the players, in exchange for getting one’s fix? Perusing the comments on PBS’s website regarding the NFL and concussions backs up this point. One reader wrote, “I watch the game knowing the risk of concussions to the players. I would like to stop watching, but how?”
The challenge now, for all parties, is to find a way to further protect players from head injuries while continuing to satisfy the “fix” fans pursue from football. Protecting players, without reducing the intensity of the sport, of course. Maybe fans would excuse some reduced intensity if they could simply relate to the players as people. After all, as “Mean” Joe Greene once said, “I’m very human.
I bleed, cry, feed the babies, read.”
Steve Seiferheld (Steve@InsightForAll.com) is president of Insight For All, a marketing strategy and customer insights practice.
