"Announcers are part of the industrial complex of college football."

August 30, 2017 12:53 PM

Ed Cunningham explains why he walked away from a job as a color analyst for ESPN.

Football has seen high-profile N.F.L. players retire early, even pre-emptively, out of concern about their long-term health, with particular worry for the brain. But Cunningham may be the first leading broadcaster to step away from football for a related reason — because it felt wrong to be such a close witness to the carnage, profiting from a sport that he knows is killing some of its participants.

“In its current state, there are some real dangers: broken limbs, wear and tear,” Cunningham said. “But the real crux of this is that I just don’t think the game is safe for the brain. To me, it’s unacceptable.”

posted by non canadian guy (19 comments total)

Can't they just declare a winner and be done with it? How many more years do they need?
posted by roll truck roll at 1:20 PM on August 30, 2017 [4 favorites]

There are billions of dollars invested into this sport/industry. Sadly, I do not see this ending any time soon. It's heart-breaking.
posted by Fizz at 1:49 PM on August 30, 2017 [3 favorites]

The business part of me says that there's no way that anyone could kill the golden goose that is the NFL, but the sane part of me reads articles that high school level football is dying out to lack of participation.

Keep your kids safe.
posted by Sphinx at 2:01 PM on August 30, 2017 [14 favorites]

I saw this a few months back (scroll down for the video). To me that's the future of football. Its exciting, the guys are clearly engaged, and it highlights the skill element of the sport.

I can't really speak for most athletes that played football, but for a lot of us, the game started as a love of the skill elements, not destroying people. Primarily because you were playing with friends and friends of friends. So you might hit someone hard, but you weren't trying to make him an invalid at all. The whole point was tackling the guy.

I say that to say that I think if you go back to the core elements of the game (and yes I realize that looks a lot like flag football which has been around for quite some time), there's a love for it that doesn't involve "slobberknockers" as John Madden was used to say.

For me the most disappointing piece of the situation of late has been Richard Sherman, who seems like a great guy, but routinely makes maddening statements about the brutal elements of the game and how the guys have signed up for it so oh well.

I hope they find a way to change the game so it can go forward. I love watching Facenda narrate the old Super Bowl footage and I'll probably love it forever, but I don't want that to be all there is.
posted by cashman at 2:33 PM on August 30, 2017 [3 favorites]

👏

I think it was Scott Simon who made the sobering observation this weekend that he remembered Gale Sayers' best game more than Sayers.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 2:46 PM on August 30, 2017 [8 favorites]

That's fine that he quit as an analyst, but there will always be someone to replace him. It's like how programmers for video games can be treated like crap - because it's such a dream job for many, there would still be a queue of people excited to do that work and still toe the NFL line which downplays the injuries and violence of the game. More needs to be done in turning off the television in the casual fans' homes on Sunday in order to make a difference.
posted by Metro Gnome at 3:01 PM on August 30, 2017 [1 favorite]

I can't decide if I'm going to watch any games this year. I've been a fairweather Seahawks fan and had a great time, but after having post-concussion syndrome for the past two years it's hard for me to justify, or enjoy, participating in any way.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:35 PM on August 30, 2017 [2 favorites]

I gave up watching Steelers games a few years ago and can't see going back at this point. It was a hard decision here where football is baked into the local cultural identity and half your office wears black and gold to work on the fridays before each game.
posted by octothorpe at 4:28 PM on August 30, 2017

Perhaps they should rename it to “American Gladiatorial Football”?
posted by acb at 4:43 PM on August 30, 2017

I learned the truth about football in 1970, when a high school classmate had his neck broken in a 'bad hit' in varsity practice. He had been one of the bullies I'd feared in Junior High and after a year of physical therapy, he returned... in an electric wheelchair for which the school had specifically built ramps. The school's football team was never the same, but the marching band I was in won a bunch of trophies, and suffered no in-performance injuries. But after growing up a couple blocks from where Merlin Olsen of the Rams lent his name to the first Audi Dealership on the West Coast, I still marvel to this day how well the players of his ear held up (although a couple of Olsen's TV roles when he got into acting made me suspect some cognitive damage).
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:57 PM on August 30, 2017 [3 favorites]

Sure College football and pro football are entertaining, but I've learned enough about the physiology that can't enjoy watching people doing that to themselves. It's like boxing, but with less pay and more joint/back injuries.

The only college sport I enjoy watching now is mid-major college basketball, because those kids are actually going to class. NBA, NASCAR, and F1 are the only professional sports I enjoy watching at home. If we add in-person attendance, MLB joins the list.

I would never let a child of mine play football, and I know that's a growing sentiment.
posted by MengerSponge at 5:50 PM on August 30, 2017 [3 favorites]

Here's what Al Michaels has to say about it all (from TFA):

If nothing else, Cunningham’s decision could prompt some self-examination among those who watch, promote, coach or otherwise participate in football without actually playing it.

Al Michaels, the veteran broadcaster who does play-by-play for NBC’s Sunday night N.F.L. broadcasts, said he did not see his role in the booth as an ethical dilemma.

“I don’t feel that my being part of covering the National Football League is perpetuating danger,” he said in a phone interview. “If it’s not me, somebody else is going to do this. There are too many good things about football, too many things I enjoy about it. I can understand maybe somebody feeling that way, but I’d be hard-pressed to find somebody else in my business who would make that decision.”

Anyway, kudos to Cunningham for walking away from Omelas.
posted by notyou at 9:57 PM on August 30, 2017 [5 favorites]

I think it was Scott Simon
My bad, it was Gumbel.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 10:12 PM on August 30, 2017

TBIs are what made me bail on football a couple years ago, even though I love the game. I don't want to be entertained at the cost of someone having a miserable life in retirement because of what the game did to their body and their brain. I'm glad Cunningham is speaking out. Yeah, he'll be replaced, but he has a lot to say about his departure, and I think he's part of a wave of growing awareness.
posted by shapes that haunt the dusk at 10:25 PM on August 30, 2017

Gumbel makes sense. He's really good.

I've totally disconnected from football. College fb was my fav sport. The TBI, the NCAA, the exploitation. I just can't anymore.
posted by persona au gratin at 3:51 AM on August 31, 2017

NBA, NASCAR, and F1 are the only professional sports I enjoy watching at home.

Larry Bird will die young. Just ask him.

How the NFL's hidden scourge threatens NASCAR drivers

Formula One drivers risking their health following orders to lose weight, warns Toro Rosso driver Carlos Sainz
posted by Rock Steady at 5:35 AM on August 31, 2017 [1 favorite]

Maybe I'm being a little glib in my previous comment. I think it is abundantly clear that a career in the NFL is damaging to one's overall health, and I think that if it wants to last another 50 years, it has to make some major changes very soon. I am a football fan, but it is harder to watch knowing what I do about TBI.

I think that, among professional sports, gridiron football is likely the most damaging of them all to players' health, but I think there are others that approach it in terms of risk, and I think that any endeavor that pushes the limits of the human body is going to entail some risk. I think that a larger discussion -- about how to manage the fact that many of the activities that we choose to engage in (smoking, riding motorcycles, sitting, being a dentist) affect our health and safety, and how free we really are to make those choices given the structural inequalities built in to our society -- gets ignored in favor of focusing on certain specific activities, like football.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:12 AM on August 31, 2017

Of course there are risks in any sport, but I think the big difference is that the NFL in particular is just paying lip-service to making necessary changes, while other sports, even ones we think of as "violent" like hockey, have made more of an effort to protect their players. If the NFL led the way to making the game safer, fans would no doubt grumble, but they would continue to watch and maybe some of us who have given up in disgust would even come back to the game. But the NFL cares not a bit for its players and so nothing changes.
posted by dellsolace at 8:43 AM on August 31, 2017

Al Michaels, the veteran broadcaster who does play-by-play for NBC’s Sunday night N.F.L. broadcasts, said he did not see his role in the booth as an ethical dilemma.

“I don’t feel that my being part of covering the National Football League is perpetuating danger,” he said in a phone interview. “If it’s not me, somebody else is going to do this. There are too many good things about football, too many things I enjoy about it. I can understand maybe somebody feeling that way, but I’d be hard-pressed to find somebody else in my business who would make that decision.”


Not that I consider Al Michaels an expert on ethics but the weakness of this argument seems patent to me. It boils down to: It's okay to do a morally suspect thing if, were you to refuse, it would be done by somebody else. Or, put another way, everybody else is doing it so it's okay to do. So, by this argument, it's okay to litter if everybody else is littering.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 6:15 AM on September 1, 2017 [1 favorite]