More football is coming.
The football industry allegedly is facing diminishing interest from Americans because of a number of reasons. A President constantly carping about players kneeling during the national anthem presentation which combined with people’s disgust with players kneeling during the national anthem is leading to people turning away from the National Football League. There is also the concussion issue which is a bigger concern to the football industry than the anthem protests. Players starting on the local youth level through the NFL may be facing major health risks from brain injuries because of blows to the head. Making helmets safer is the hoped for solution but football remains a collision sport and there probably are not too many ways to make the game safer unless blocking and tackling are outlawed.
Despite the anthem critics, despite evidence that football could be dangerous to a players’ health, despite declining TV ratings, although most sports are facing the same problem of less viewers in front of the sets, Football is growing and there will be more college games this year, a new pro league in 2019 and Vince McMahon may spend up to a half billion dollars getting his league, the XFL, up and going in 2020. The Alliance of American Football has eight teams ready to take the field next February and it could be that many of players that will be on AAF rosters are on NFL rosters right now. The NFL has 32 teams and about 90 players in camp or about 2,700 players. One third of those players will not make NFL rosters. The AAF will scout around 900 players who will be available. A few will head to Canada but those available players could stock the AAF and XFL. The NFL, AAF and XFL will also have more players to scout as there are more 778 college football programs. Football interest is not waning.
Despite all of its problems, the NFL is still the sports gold standard in America.
