Something I've thought about quite a bit is if it's morally defensible to watch high-impact sports* with high percentages of head injuries. This has been on my mind at least since League of Denial came out, which Amazon tells me is 2013.** It lays out a pretty damning case against the league, a reputation the NFL is still trying to shake. *We're going to count professional wrestling as a sport for today. The outcomes and big spots might be scripted, but there is no way you can argue, especially in today's wrestling, these people are not athletes. **Which is also an absolutely excellent book. I cannot recommend it enough. And, well, yeah. Shame on the leagues as a whole. It is just another chapter of the billionaire-for-life owners taking advantage of players who have relatively brief careers, leaving many to hope the money holds out. Many are very well compensated, of course, and we can have a discussion another day about professional athletes' salaries, but the owners are the ones raking in the cash. And being a team owner is usually just a side gig for these guys. Most of them have made or are making their money somewhere else. Owning these teams is just a really expensive (and lucrative!) hobby. So, yes, in this case, let's recognize who has the power here and who typically abuses that power. Based on that alone, it can feel rather uncomfortable to support these organizations. But, unfortunately, when it comes to the highest levels of athletic competition, it is one of the few areas where a monopoly not only makes sense, but is really the only arrangement that will work. Even professional wrestling could not avoid it. At the end of the day, somebody has to be the top dog, somebody has to organize one place for the top athletes in the field to compete against one another. The only place this hasn't really happened is boxing, which we discussed last week. But even then, cross-promotion fights happen regularly, which is much easier to pull off in an individual sport. The only real setup for multiple top tier leagues is for champions to meet at the end of every season to see who the true champion is. Like, I don't know, you might call it a World Series. Have you contacted the American or National League offices lately? Nobody has since 2000. So, yes, there might be business reasons not to support a certain league or ownership group. That's not our question today. Our question is whether it is morally defensible to watch the sports themselves. It is barbaric to support any combat sport, football, hockey, et cetera? I would say it might be a bit barbaric, but that's a long way from saying it is morally wrong. There have always been some pretty dangerous games throughout history, but that isn't really a defense. Saying "it's always been this way" is always a very weak argument for something, especially when one tries to put ancient morals onto the present.* But I do think it speaks there is something deep within us that gets some excitement from seeing people do these breathtaking things and conquering over danger. The problem is, of course, when you flirt with danger, sometimes dangerous stuff happens. *Some do hold up, though. The words Jesus actually said have aged pretty well. Some of the other stuff . . . not as much. I think what saves it for me, though, is nobody ever pretended otherwise. Maybe we didn't know the extent of the damage the way we do now, but we knew plenty to say these kind of sports were not the sort of profession to go into if you were interested in longevity. There is a reason saying somebody is "punchy" or "punch-drunk" is a well-established part of the lexicon. We, the audience, know the risks. The athletes, especially now, should know the risks. We all know the deal coming in. You can get pretty seriously hurt in just about every athletic undertaking. If you were afraid of injury, athletics isn't really the place for you. If you are deeply afraid of being knocked out, maybe don't go into boxing. These are the terms of the deal, nobody hid the broad strokes from you. So, yes, maybe watching this stuff answers a bit of bloodlust within us. But we all knew the deal coming in. We can do better about managing the risks and taking care of these athletes afterwards, of course. And I believe most leagues are trying. We can argue if they are doing enough, and that's a good conversation to have. Again, leagues are not going to do these things out of the goodness of their hearts. It's going to take public pressure or outright legal measures to enforce it. But, in the meantime, I don't feel anybody has to worry they are being immoral for enjoying watching a fight or violent football or hockey hit. Our biology draws us to it, and it's okay to admit that.
Steve C
4/23/2019 11:47:35 am
Nice blog on a tough topic. Comments are closed.
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