The players are not really aware of the health risks, furthermore they are young and foolish and impressionable and are following the path of glamour which has been sold to them as youngsters.
The sports organization is aware of the risks and are using the players to make vast sums for themselves, they are pushing the glamourous path and they are not supporting the discarded players. They are ignoring the debt to society incurred generating their profit and that is not good unless you think that their tax payments should cover it (do they? I don't know..)
I think a great deal of them would still choose to play despite knowing the risks. There are likely neighborhoods where people raise families that are less safe than playing in the NFL.
And I'm sorry, but 25 year olds are not "young and impressionable" any more, so I don't buy that defense. These are adults making adult decisions: http://www.footballperspective.com/2016-av-adjusted-team-age...
What I would buy as a defense is that NFL has a serious amount of propaganda and actively works to suppress medical knowledge which can fool anyone, child or adult.
It is a very similar kind of propaganda for selling military careers by associating it with video games to high schoolers except that you can actually join the US military at 17 with parental consent.
Yes, some of these athletes are choosing between sports and poverty. That's another reason why it's messed up, not why it's okay.
I might agree that 25 is an adult but lets be realistic here.. if you can find somebody who at that age made the decision to join the sport and actually got into a pro team, well I'll be amazed!
Nice guess, but that's not your decision to make. I'm not sure what movie you watched that gave you such a deep understanding of the trade offs, but is it possible you don't fully understand them?
> 25 year olds are not "young and impressionable" any more
They're not? News to me. Maybe I'm just getting old.
I'll say this because it fits the demographic here on HN, but have you ever met mid-20-something techies in the bay area? My experience has been that many of them are still very impressionable. Being technically an adult doesn't magically make you immune to being impressionable.
Remember the state of being impressionable is about a lack of critical thinking. Given what we've seen with the recent election, it seems very plausible that many adults lack critical thinking. No?
Looking at this more objectively - 1 out of 4 college football players drops out of school and doesn't finish their degree. Also, more objectively, at the age of 25, you're only a third of the way through your expected life (~78). So, yes these people are still considered "young".
Good, then this is easy: let's tell them, and make it their choice.
They would still play even if we took steps to minimize the risks.
We do appreciate your substantive posts but you're damaging the site with these other ones, which are not at all the kind of internet forum HN is trying to be.
Some think that society should protect vulnerable individuals (in this case, mostly poor people that see in football a way to get well-off/rich) from predatory organizations (in this case, a monopolistic organization that has proven to have no regard for the health of its workers).
Notice that most people aren't asking for a ban of the sport - just some rule changes to minimize the health risks.
It's literally the closest thing you can get to modern day gladiators.