Football’s problems are not going away.
The Thanksgiving weekend football celebration began with the annual Thursday Detroit Lions afternoon game, followed by the Dallas Cowboys signature regular season event and a third NFL game to cap off a day of eating and watching football. Thursday also featured local high school football rivalry games. Then came the Friday college games and the traditional college rivalry games on Saturday and back to the NFL for Sunday. But the football industry is no longer soaring, sure there are all time high revenues coming into both the National Football League and college football yet there are major storm clouds gathering. The NFL which seemed to be flawless for about a half century starting in 1960 has been reeling for the past half dozen years with bad player and front office behavior leading to arrests, there have been murders committed by players, the national anthem protests and the biggest problem of them all concussions.
The football industry is under siege and needs to invent a new narrative while pushing the football builds character, shows boys how to work within a team structure and turns boys into men mantra. The November news has not been good. The national anthem protests are just noise and if people are jumping off the football bandwagon because of the protests, so be it. The important people, the TV networks, the marketing partners, the people buying the big items, luxury boxes and club seats have not left the building because of the national anthem protests. But the concussion issue is going to harm the industry as former players, like Nick Buonoconti, describe their health issues caused by brain damage and more news about CTE is reported. Parents may so no to letting their children play football because of brain injuries. If that happens, there will be less players and less interest and that’s the real danger for the industry.
