America’s football league turns 100 years old
Hi there, welcome to Plain English. I’m Jeff; JR is the producer; and this is episode 211 of Plain English. Your recipe for success, the best podcast for learning English. All the episode resources are available at PlainEnglish.com/211.
Coming up today: America’s National Football league is preparing to celebrate its one-hudredth birthday, and it is as strong as ever. Just a few years ago, it didn’t look that way. Later on in the episode, we’ll talk about what it means to turn a corner. And we have a great song of the week, one of my favorite songs, so you have that to look forward to also. Ready to get started? Let’s go.
American football turns 100
Next year, America’s National Football League will be 100 years old. Although American football is not as popular in the rest of the world, it’s America’s favorite sport, though that hasn’t always been the case. Football is a huge part of America’s traditions in the fall, and this Thanksgiving Day 2019 is no different, with three games going on, starting around mid-day and lasting into the night.
Let’s start with a measure of how popular and integrated American football is into our culture.
The Superbowl, its championship football game held each winter in January or February, is often the United States’ most-watched television broadcast all year. Many people throw Superbowl parties and invite their friends and coworkers over to share food and beer, and watch the game together. The average American football game draws 16 million viewers in the United States. To put that in perspective, the least-popular time slot for an NFL game is on a Thursday night. A Thursday night football game attracted more viewers than one of the World Series games in baseball—so a routine regular season football game in the least popular time slot out-drew a championship game in baseball. The NFL draft—not even a game, the NFL draft is a media event in which teams select their players for the next year, and it’s televised. The NFL draft had more viewers than playoff games in basketball and hockey. The most popular primetime television shows are regular season Sunday and Monday night football games.
Just a few years ago, though, it seemed that American football was headed for a decline. The media was full of stories about how football’s moment had passed; how the mighty league was going to fall; how fans were being turned off from the game.
The league faced a perfect storm of challenges all in the same two- or three-year time period. The most serious threat to football was, and remains, player safety. Football is a heavy-contact sport. They are big, big guys; they crash into each other; they tackle each other. They hit hard—sometimes too hard. The league was facing a real question about the long-term health effects players suffer from being hit so many times over the course of a career. Helmets protect your head, but players are susceptible to concussions. Too many concussions can lead to permanent brain damage. Several former players suffered from dementia early in life. Others suffered headaches. The life expectancy of an NFL player is decades less than for the general population. Many former players doubted whether they’d let their kids play the game. Parents started pulling kids from youth football programs. If there are fewer kids playing football, then there are fewer football fans, and fewer potential players in the future.
That was the first problem. The other problems were image-related. Several players were embroiled in off-the-field controversies—that’s a polite way of saying, several players were in trouble with the law. And I’m not talking traffic tickets—things like domestic violence, guns, things like that. I won’t go into details, but there was a disturbing video of a player. The league was under pressure to discipline the players over and above whatever legal consequences they faced. At the same time, the players have a union and the union wanted to make sure players weren’t punished unfairly. This put the league in the uncomfortable position of having to adjudicate domestic violence and other criminal activity—and every minute of publicity took its toll on the sport’s image.
Then there is the politics. One player, followed quickly by a few others, decided to kneel down as the national anthem played. The player said that this was in protest of police violence toward African Americans. The sports media went on a feeding frenzy; all of a sudden, the national anthem and who was standing and who was kneeling was the hottest topic in the media. This was a political statement by that player on the field, and a lot of fans didn’t like it. A lot of fans did like it. But a lot of fans took that as a sign of disrespect to the country, to the flag, and a lot of people didn’t appreciate that now they had to be exposed to political controversies while watching football. As if your day is not already full enough of divisive controversy—it’s now staring you in the face as you watch a game on Sunday.
TV ratings took a dive for two years in a row; the year of the national anthem protests, viewership was down by eight percent. The media seemed to delight in predicting the demise of American football. The smart opinion, the thought leaders were all saying the same thing: football’s moment had passed.
Now, as the NFL prepares to celebrate its one hundredth year, it seems to have turned a corner. They implemented rule changes—and they continue to review rules each year—aimed at protecting player safety. They have implemented more rigorous concussion screening protocols. They are leading an effort to reduce the risky contact in youth sports. Football is always going to be high-contact and there is risk. The professionals on the field know the risks, but the kids playing in school leagues don’t. Rules are being changed in youth leagues to make playing football safer in schools.
The player who led the national anthem protests now doesn’t have a job. That rubs some people the wrong way, but the national anthem protests have passed. I don’t know if we’ll ever know for sure, but my guess is that the league and the players’ union both realized that they have too much to lose from staging national political dramas in the middle of a football game. Fans, who pay everyone’s bills, want and deserve an escape from the controversies of the day—and the league and players have moved on.
What endures, though, is that the product is so good. A football game is exciting. Anything can happen. Each team only plays 16 games, so every game counts. Every game matters. It brings a city together. In the age of streaming, it’s one thing that everyone pauses and watches at the same time. The games have, if anything, gotten better over the last few years, too.
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