Another Season of Horror Kicks Off
The National Football League kicks off yet another season tonight — and with it, another season of severe brain damage for players. To confront the costs of football head on, we need solidarity between players and fans that can put the well-being of athletic workers first.
The line of scrimmage of the Cincinnati Bengals game against the Indianapolis Colts at Paul Brown Stadium on August 29, 2019 in Cincinnati, Ohio.Andy Lyons / Getty
The Amazon is ablaze, concentration camps line the nation’s borders, and a recession may be coming. Luckily for us all, tonight, the National Football League (NFL) season begins.
The only thing is, if you look just a little more closely, you might notice that the football circus is looking more like a horror show. That’s because, in order to produce the spectacle, the NFL is systematically sacrificing the futures of its employees in plain sight.
As the 2019 season gets under way, we are light years past the moment of plausible deniability, when “owners” and other profiteers (the television and sports media industries, just for starters) could claim they didn’t have the data to understand the cost of a career in professional football. Now they know, and we do too.
Sorry, but this article is available to active subscribers only. Please log in or become a subscriber.