Playing Professional Sports Analysis

Is it worth putting people at a health risk in order to entertain? Football players face a difficult and harsh reality when their playing days stop. The stress of the game takes its toll on their bodies, and that stress on them can lead to financial and emotional struggles for which they are not prepared to deal with. “A survey of 763 former NFL players conducted by Newsday in conjunction with the NFL Players showed 61 percent said they found it difficult to adjust to daily life after their career, while 85 percent said they did not believe the NFL adequately prepared them for the transition”.

Sports illustrated has been making magazines for many years now. It first started up in October 16, 1954. This magazine has been going for a long time. It was created by Henry Luce, who also developed Time magazine. Time Magazine is the distributor for this magazine. The Headquarters for Sports Illustrated is in New York City. This magazines’ audience is intended for adults and sports lovers everywhere. Sports Illustrated supply’s these magazines to inform the people of America about what is going on in the sports world.

There is a field in the sport of basketball that is growing at a rapid pace. That field is called analytics. Nearly every team in the NBA now has an analytics department. However, it is important to fully understand analytics before applying that knowledge to the sport of basketball. “Analytics is the discovery and communication of meaningful patterns in data” (Stolbunov 1). Analytics being used in sports is simply called sports analytics. Even though analytics has its flaws, it has had a major impact on team building in basketball using statistics like player efficiency rating and effective field goal percentage. There are many important statistics used in analytics, but a couple are used to very great effect.

"The student athletes will endure life long effects of playing physically demanding sports. “Injuries can saddle them with years of medical bills.” (Majerol). Athletes are there to make the college sports better, schools see them as only someone to help make them profit by making the sports program better. As soon as they leave the sports program they no longer care about the physical trauma, and mental trauma the athlete has to deal with the rest of their life. “less than 2 percent of college athletes ever compete professionally.” (Zissou). This mean 2 percent of the athletes will proffesional medical care, while the other 98 percent have to pay out of pocket for the rest of their lives on their used up knees and backs relying on medication to help numb some of the pain so they can get by. Football is one of the most taxing on the body, a study released July of 2017 says “A Journal of the American Medical Association report says

The football players are aware of the risks involve with the sport and make the conscious decision to

The lack of knowledge that the majority of athletes enter the league with causes experts on the NFL’s policies to believe that the front office does not see the injury as a serious problem in the game today. “With the subsequent deaths of several relatively young retired NFL players, the autopsies of their brains, and the newly minted diagnosis chronic traumatic encephalopathy, we know the problem is real” (Carroll). This quotation intensifies the emphasis on the true problem the National Football League seems to be avoiding. Every injury, no matter how small or seemingly unimportant, needs to be addressed. “Even the only game that matters doesn't matter as much as your brain” (Flynn). There is nothing wrong with a person participating in the sport he loves, but when a blow to the head occurs, quick and efficient action must be taken to address the situation at hand. The National Football League and its policies do not suffice in relation to this area of concern. The fact of the matter is that no game, activity, or sport is worth a person’s

Many people may think that the players knew what they signed up for when they started playing football, but did they really? Did NFL players really know what risks they were put at by playing football? What we now know today as football was invented in 1869, the NFL was established in 1920 and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) was discovered in 2002. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, sounds like a bunch of scientific words for a head condition but CTE is much more than a minor head injury. CTE cause a variation of horrific symptoms like, irritability, aggression, speech difficulties and motor impairment, just to name a few. Bennet Omalu, the man who discovered CTE and brought up a living nightmare to NFL found that there was a strong link between football and the degenerative disease. According to Journal of the American Medical Association, “%99 of the 111 ex-NFLers brains’ were diagnosed with CTE.”. So, you tell me in the, 70’s, 80’s 90’s and even 2000’s did NFL players really know what they were at risk of.

The other side’s argument is false in my opinion, because when looking at the NFL’s recent changes to the league, in response to concussions, there hasn’t been a strong movement to ensure their athletes are taken care of. These athletes who spend an entire career in the NFL playing football, only have limited health insurance for six years after their retirement. As research has shown though, the effects of playing professional football often last throughout a person’s lifetime. Players have worked to try and change this form of treatment, but the league has refused to even consider it. Not to mention, schedule changes over the past few years, have left players more prone to injury due to the need to make more money. There isn’t a direct focus on eliminating an issue that has already ruined so many lives and decreased the popularity of the sport. The NFL has acted weakly, in order to keep fans at bay while trying to grab every dollar that pops up in front of their

Many of the former and present NFL players believe that like boxing, the NFL had to be aware of the health risks associated with repetitive blows producing sub concussive and concussive results. The fact that some members of the NFL player population were at significant risk of developing long term brain damage, had to be known by the league. Players say,

Referring back to the original article, I cannot find the study which conclusively states that playing football leads to “brain damage, in the form of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, post-concussion syndrome, depression, and other long-term head-related injuries.” The really scary stuff (CTE) occurs mostly in NFL players—that is, in less than 0.1 percent of the about 1.8 million football players (summing those in Pop Warner, high school, the NCAA, and the NFL) in the United States, which seems statistically negligible. Moreover, NFL players move further off the grid with the length of their season (last

In the article “The NFL Recognizes Brain Damage to Players” the author Lawrence Gable explains that NFL players are experiencing too many concussions. Concussions can lead to suicide and several other mental issues that can affect the NFL players as well as future players. Football players and their families are suing the NFL for 765 million dollars. Gable states, “The NFL has admitted that football is causing permanent damage. Now it must convince the judge that it finally has the players’ best interests at heart” (paragraph 10). This quote shows how football is dangerous and can lead to serious injuries. Some people may believe that the NFL does not care about the players based upon the research Gable provided. The author’s purpose is

The risk of long term injury that former, current and future NFL players take is a decision that they make individually but the NFL has to be a responsible employer and

If an athlete is willing to do everything in his power to help his team succeed, then he should not be ashamed of that. The choices made by the participants should be exactly that, their choices. The acceptance of risk is strictly up to the user and should not be forced upon them by a higher authority. Professional sports should be looked at for what they are, a money-making

Throughout the video Big Hits, Broken Dreams many questions and issues come into effect which plays a vital role in millions of families across the United States. There are many perspectives regarding this issue but the majority of the perspectives lay on the parents and the athletes. Two very different opinions you have the parent’s opinion which is to keep their child safe at all times, and you have the athlete’s perspective which is they are willing to play in pain for the sport that they love. Which brings this question which is, do the risks outweigh the benefits to young people playing certain sports? There have been many instances where athletes were badly hurt and even died because they play hurt. The athlete has to think and adjust

Babe Ruth once said, “The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime.” There are two different sporting strategies: a team with a superstar, and a team that plays small ball. These two strategies are typically applied to baseball. The team with the superstars (or homerun hitters), strives to get all their runs on those one or two players that can hit the ball out of the park. Small ball is quite the opposite. This type of team just tries to get batters on base. They get their runs by slowly getting the players back to home plate. These strategies are also used in volleyball. But in volleyball, the homerun