“The NFL is a tax-exempt organization.
Let’s just begin there before we get any deeper into this. Whether or not you would walk into this review as a huge football fan, if you can’t agree that there is a problem when the money-making juggernaut that is the NFL is TAX EXEMPT, then I think you should stop reading right here.
In Against Football, Steve Almond lays out in clear, concise language, the problems with American football, of which there are many.
I didn’t pick up this book because I saw something that was anti-football and thought it would align with how I feel. It’s true, I don’t really enjoy watching football. I’ve always thought it was kind of crazy the amount of devotion people showed to geographically-based teams composed of men who don’t play for their home state and often don’t even live there full time. But honestly, I really enjoy books and movies about sports. I lack the patience or the quietness of the soul or the stockpile of Doritos or whatever it is that might let me sit in front of the TV for 4+ hours on a Sunday watching what is, statistically, likely to be an unremarkable match with a few highlights. But I like a great sports story, and I’m always up for a highlight reel.
That said, after reading this book, I’m firmly in the anti-football camp. Especially when it comes to anyone under 16 playing tackle football.
This book, it’s an important read for everyone because we’re all taxpayers and consumers of entertainment. It’s REQUIRED reading if you’re thinking about whether or not it’s a good idea to let your child play football. I try not to make judgments about how other people conduct their lives, but I’m telling you right now, if you have a boy who is considering football, set aside the hour it takes to read this book. If you skip this book, you are not upholding some sort of morality or ideology. You are denying yourself the opportunity to even ASK THE QUESTIONS about what football might mean for the longevity, emotional stability, and cognitive ability of your child. I’m not judging a parent who lets a child play football…okay, yes I am. Now, anyway. But there’s a lot of misinformation and crap swirling out there, so what I’m really judging is the parent who, made aware of the existence of this information, does not avail him or herself of it.
I’m not normally in the habit of summarizing books in a review because it sort of spoils the reading experience. However, I think that there are some key points in here that are really important, whether you are a sports fan or not, and with apologies to Mr. Almond, I’d like to talk about a few of them.
+Retired football players are NINETEEN times more likely to suffer from brain-related illness than non-players, and retired players die 20 years earlier on average.
20 years. Think about that. Not in the abstract. Think about what your life would be like if your parent died 20 years earlier. How different the world would be if the average male life expectancy was in the 50’s.
What’s really fucked up, the NFL did its own “study” and found players live longer than the average person. How did they find the exact opposite of the first study? What they did is compare ALL human men as opposed to college-educated males. So in their study, you’ve got people with chronic diseases. You’ve got people who died before their 10th birthday. The stats are fucked, whereas in the first, correct version, NFL players were compared to college-educated males, which most of them are.
+Taxpayers funded 70 percent of the construction costs of the stadiums in which the NFL plays.
The old saw here is that pro sports bring a lot of business to town. Maybe, sure. However, let’s put this in simple financial terms. For what business would you put up 70% of the capital and expect absolutely nothing as a return on your investment? Why would it be wrong to then have the taxpayers reap 70% of the benefits from that stadium? The NFL is set to earn $10 BILLION this year. That would mean $7 BILLION would go back into the nation’s budget. In one year, only because we asked for the return on our investment.
According to the book here, even if the cities asked for only the return of the cost of building and maintaining the stadiums, we’d still be talking hundreds of millions of dollars returned to the local economy.
More to the point and close to my own heart, how the fuck is it that these tax-funded stadiums don’t require a vote?
The current state, as put by Almond: “Think about how insane our cultural priorities are that we’re allowing so much money to be siphoned from the public till and funneled directly into the private koi ponds of the nation’s wealthiest families. That arrangement isn’t even capitalist. It’s feudal.”
+The NFL is tax-exempt.
Note that the NBA and MLB are not. Football is the only one. 501(c)6, baby.
+I’m just going to quote the book directly on this one, Almond’s summary of the NFL questions surrounding the draft of Michael Sam, the first openly-gay player in NFL history, and the tenor of so many news reports and articles asking if the NFL was “ready” for an openly-gay player:
“A workplace exists, Circa 2014, in Which the Prospect of Accommodating a Single Openly Gay Employee Is Enough to Induce Panic.”
+The book and the movie The Blind Side ask the question of whether an impovershed African-American would have been adopted by a well-to-do white family if it weren’t for his football skills.
They both ask the question, and they fail to answer it. One has to wonder if the answer is not forthcoming because that answer is No.
+High School players receive more blows to the head than college players, and because their brains are still developing, these blows do more damage.
+Researchers at Purdue University studied the effects of concussions on high school players. They set up a study using non-concussed players as a control group, however they found that even those who did not suffer concussions showed plummeting levels of cognitive ability as the football season continued.
Almond, again:
“What would happen if some invisible gas leak in the school cafeteria caused diminished brain activity in students? Can we safely assume district officials would evacuate the school until further notice? That parents would be up in arms? That media and lawyers would descend in droves to collect statements from the innocent victims? Can we assume that the community would not gather together en masse on Friday nights to eat hot dogs and watch the gas leak?
+Buzz Bissinger, who wrote Friday Night Lights, believes football should be banned in high school and college.
+45% of Division I football players never graduate college.
+Football players are disposable, abused athletes.
If it helps you sleep at night, feel free to say that they know what they’re doing and they get paid proportionally to their risk. If it helps you sleep at night, don’t look into what Jim McMahon has to say. Or Brett Favre coming to tears when he says he doesn’t remember his daughter playing soccer. Don’t look into the facts behind Junior Seau’s suicide.
That’s just a little bit of what’s in here.
I suspect, based on some emails shared in the book, that Almond is going to get a lot of flack for this book, especially of the “don’t be such an artsy pussy” variety. As a self-proclaimed artsy pussy, I can say it’s not that bad. Because really, I’d ask you this back: Is the coward the person who addresses questions not by answering, but by questioning the character of who asked them, or is the coward the person who asks some very unpopular questions while being fully aware of the consequences?
Almond, yet again:
“I’m going to get hammered for asking these questions. Fine. Hammer away But don’t pretend that’s the same as answering.”
As a final note, what can you do if you think any of the stuff above is wrong. Stop football. For yourself. Stop watching, stop participating.
Almond relates the story of Howard Cosell, well-known sports announcer, who announced a boxing match and then declared the sport brutal, saying he’d never announce another boxing match again.
Almond, one last time:
“Did Cosell’s boycott end boxing as we know it? No. That’s not the point. You take a stand because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’s effective.””