What?!?!?!?
Heresy… how can watching football be unethical?
I love watching football and played my senior year of high school (mostly warming the bench). Watching Seattle’s Superbowl victories was thrilling and a great bonding experience with friends.
However, the research shows extremely clearly that football damages the brains of basically all players. The NY Times published an article showing that of 111 NFL brains studied, 110 brains had CTE – a degenerative disease linked to repeated blows to the head.
There are many alternative sports to watch that don’t permanently damage their players – basketball, tennis, swimming, running, table tennis. Baseball and soccer each are much safer as well, though still can damage their players.
When you watch football, you are contributing to further damage of many people’s brains. The NFL sponsors millions of children playing youth football in an effort to build interest and a pipeline to their product. Most of those children will never make any money playing football, but are putting their health in serious jeopardy. The NFL players themselves are trading a few million dollars now for destroyed brains and ruined lives.
I know football is fun to watch, but doing so encourages and continues to cause serious damage to the brains of the players, and encourages kids to play the sport and risk damage to themselves as well.
Do something else with your time… watch Game of Thrones or basketball or spend time with your family.