In both sports, it’s expected that someone or something “almost always get[s] hurt,” writes Malcolm Gladwell in this New Yorker article, where he goes over the sports’ similarities — including the reason why, despite their brutality, both will likely stick around for a long time. [%comments]
What Do Dogfighting and Football Have in Common?
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The argument against the “consent’ is sort of made at the end of the piece. . .that football players, like dogs, are selected for gameness. It’s not the strongest part of the essay, IMO.
Dogs can choose not to fight. But, they are encourage by their master’s “love” (quotes intentional).
Yes, football players are sentient beings, but they are brought into football at young ages with authority figures who encourage them to play in such a manner that is likely to harm them.
As Gladwell writes, ” We are in love with football players, with their courage and grit, and nothing else—neither considerations of science nor those of morality—can compete with the destructive power of that love.”
Anyone who argues that the appeal of football is in the violence obviously is not a football fan, or likely a sports fan for that matter.
People bet on them and betting is a major part of their allure.
#10:
I’m actually a sport fan. As a matter of fact, I like a good number of sports. I also played a year of D-1 baseball, so you might want to retract your claim.
I’m making the claim that the violence in American football is one of the main driving forces in it being so popular in the USA.
Do you have a counterclaim?
#9 As a former football player and coach for over 15 years I can can tell you that if you do not have it in you, in your heart, to play the game of football then after the age of 12 then you will “wash out.”
The game is too physical and too demanding. It requires a huge level of commitment in order for one to succeed at the high school level let alone college and the pros. So I think your argument that kids are indoctrinated into the culture and play on into their adult years because of it is false
#12:
It is all a matter of degrees. I would never argue that the violence doesn’t attract any fans. However, to say that it is “one of the main driving forces in [football] being so popular” seems quite extreme.
Your claim cannot be conclusively proven or false but I would ask you to consider the XFL. It was promoted as a more violent NFL yet it folded after one season. It would appear then that football fans were not attracted to the extra violence being offered.
#14:
I think that you raise strong points regarding the XFL. I just think that the talent wasn’t there to help the league endure, instead of the extra violence not being an incentive.
Perhaps we’ll need more leagues to pop up in order to increase the sample size of failed professional leagues.
It would be interesting to compare the rate of this type of injury to those sustained by rugby players who don’t have the benefit of padding, helmets and the like. My gut feeling would be that it would be much less if for no other reason that you feel so much more vulnerable without the protection and therefore don’t go into the tackles as hard and in a safer way i.e. not head first.