The story of concussion injuries and their link to depression, dementia and suicide first came to my attention in a series of reports by National Public Radio in March. The story seems have gotten legs following the suicide death of Andre Waters and the public comments of retired linebacker Ted Johnson, who suffered two concussions in four days during the 2002 NFL season.

This week’s Real Sports on HBO is running a story on the link between concussions and brain injury, and exposing what the NFL would like to hide; that they are trying to whitewash the story. The NFL has hired a mouthpiece, Dr. Ian Casson, to refute a link between concussions and chronic cognitive problems, a view that seems increasingly isolated from the evidence and majority medical opinion.

It seems to me that all of this serves to point out the major problem with major league sports, too much money circulating around a game. The average valuation of an NFL team is now well over three-quarters of a billion dollars, a 211% percent increase over the last eight seasons, which means that money is likely to trump all other concerns about players and fans.

Why has sports become such a big business over the last few decades or so? Corporate sponsorship from investments to merchandise licensing has made the NFL a six billion-plus dollar industry. Corporate sponsorship of venues, corporate sponsorship of players and franchises and corporate-style management of the league itself . Alarmingly, the recent history of the major sports leagues has many eerie parallels to the corporate colusion within our own government (e.g. the defense industry). This of course isn’t coincidence, our corporate overlords’ fingerprints are ubiquitous throughout society. What the sports franchise industry illustrates well, however, is the increasingly subtle means used to consumerize every possible aspect of people’s lives, at any cost, and just to make a buck.

 

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