More children are seriously injured playing soccer every year. Soccer has the highest injury rate among kids sports by far. Fact.
Mayweather? Pacquiao? De la Hoya? Roy jones jr.? Comon MMA is much more than bashing heads in. It's mastery of several styles of martial arts, skills that take a lifetime of dedication and training to acquire.
If it's played right, football doesn't cause head injuries as much as it's reputation right now.I personally feel its a great sport for young men and boys to play and having grown up playing it myself I wouldn't trade it in for a second. You have your opinions and I would never tell another man how to raise his children, so I'm not. I am closely involved in youth football, coaching, refereeing, etc... I'll just say that I think a lot of the negative reports on the sport as it pertains to head injuries in youth athletes are overblown. We're talking like a small percentage of the overall pool of football players. Some people might not want to take that risk and that's fine, but lets not act like little jimmy is destined to a life of permanent brain issues if he decides to join the football team...It's a risk but it also has plenty of rewards, not unlike most things in life. What they should be focusing on right now is teaching the game right to our youth athletes. 99% of them aren't going to play past high school anyway. Increase the emphasis on practicing safe and proper tackling and fundamentals and less on the strategy/trying to emulate college and pro teams. There is an epidemic right now stretching from the NFL all the way down with poor tackling and it's because it's not practiced. That is probably a major reason why there are head injuries. All the penalties and new helmet technologies in the world aren't going to fix anything if people don't know how to keep their heads up and wrap tackle. Honestly, at the high school and lower levels, you'd probably win more football games anyway if you spent more time practicing and coaching the fundamentals of blocking and tackling, in spite of strategy. Yet you go to any football field in America right now and they are walking through strategy all practice and designing new plays : because every coach thinks they are Bill Walsh. The focus should be on the kids and the game, not for coaches to have fun.
I was young then, but I ended up watching boxing because my dad did. In the late 80's early 90's I really got into it (typical casual fan, mostly watching the heavyweights.). I remember Chavez vs Meldrick Taylor vividly though.
I'm guessing aimlessly running around and into each other, both teams congesting around one spot on the field. There is a table of injury rates in one of my textbooks I will pull it up later if you want.
Floyd Mayweather is the 7th richest athlete on earth and he's the only guy other than Tiger Woods to make $100M in a year. We think of Boxing as a dead sport but it's still around and kicking.
Yeah, you might want to do that. You're conjecturing that soccer injuries are worse than in football. Let's start this game. If you're swaying my point simply by numbers knowing full well that countless millions more people play soccer, then your point sucks. The point is and always will be that debilitating injuries ARE happening every year in football at all ages. Soccer gets ankle sprains and shin bruises. Give me a break. I'm talking about (and repeating) head trauma and spinal injuries from battering ram impacts. And if this WERE happening at the same rate (which it doesn't), there should be a cause to stop soccer. The bigger point is kids are being maimed, no?
I don't think football will end; it's getting more popular every year. The concussion fears are not going to affect kids from working class families- and that is where most NFL players come from. Also, in states like Texas and Florida, it's viewed as an integral part of the culture. It's not going away. There are players like Junior Seau who were ruined by pro football, and others who played just as long and hard who are completely fine. But it's a simple fact that most NFL players do not get CTE. They're going to figure out a genetic test that will be able to help determine whether you'll be extremely vulnerable like Junior Seau, or virtually immune, or somewhere in between. That will be used to screen out the Junior Seaus from the sport.
Actually, soccer causes a lot of brain damage. Players practice heading the ball, which is a difficult skill to master and involves massive amounts of head trauma. And obviously they don't wear helmets. CTE is a risk of just about every sport. http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/28/health/cte-soccer-rugby/
I'm not denying the popularity. I think you miss the boat there. The question is will these head injuries catch up with the demise of the sport in the future? How much of this will continue? We'll see how long the general public ignores this when continuous tragedies take place and further lawsuits line up against the NFL and NCAA. No one's right and no one's wrong here - just guessing out loud. Thanks for the responses.
My point is that everyone is always citing how many kids get hurt playing football while ignoring other sports that result in high injury rates as well. It's societal perception. Just like there is a stigma against children weightlifting despite it having one of the lowest injury rates. It is far more complex. They are professional athletes and should be respected, not belittled by uninformed fans.
Why is that, do they have feelings that might be scarred? You're pretty funny. Let's not forget the fact that the main intent of that sport is to maim the opponent as viciously and thoroughly as possible, okay? Don't bring me this art of sport speak 'cause I ain't buyin' it. At all. You go ahead and worship that "sport" and by all means, have your children participate in it since you have such respect for the game. I'm not. I was using it as a point of reference and couldn't care less how "complex" training to maim someone might be. Am I clear?
Because you don't following boxing it is irrelevant? Boxing revenue is in the billions each year with over 2.5 million viewers for top bouts, seems pretty relevant to me.
I thought it was dead. Do any major networks carry it or is it limited to pay-per-view? I honestly haven't seen a fight in about 15 years. Compared to what it was - yeah, I'd say it's very irrelevant.
That's not the main intent at all, you reveal your complete ignorance on the subject. I don't worship any sport but I respect some and if I ever do have children I definitely will introduce and encourage them to participate in martial arts. Find another reference point then because you clearly don't understand the beauty of martial arts, maybe mandingo fighting is what you were looking for. And try not to have a tantrum everytime someone calls you out on something, you're gonna have a hard time on here.
FoxSports, HBO, ESPN, SHO and others carry boxing, PPV is very lucrative so when you say "limited to" you show that you really know nothing about it and are speaking only of your opinion or its relevance to you not its relevance as a whole. Billions of dollars a year in revenue shows your claim of irrelevance to be completely off the mark. You don't like boxing so what would you not seeing a fight in 15 years have to do with anything?
