What a bunch of horse manure. Football is a multi-billion dollar enterprise' and is here to stay as a big time sport beyond this generation and probably the next one. In my thinking they can do more to improve the helmets, as well as making those who lay gratuitous "big hits" onto vulnerable players personally liable for the harm they cause outside the rules of the game. The players' union can do a great deal to police their own bad apples on this issue. If everyone just stands around waiting for the owners to fix things they might find themselves waiting along time.

Football is a multi-billion dollar enterprise and is here to stay as a big time sport beyond this generation and probably the next one.

Terry Bradshaw disagrees. And when some university gets its butt handed to it in a lawsuit, and insurance against that sort of liability becomes unavailable, college football as we know it will end. We might as well be talking about college boxing, or college ultimate fighting -- it's not going to continue. Certainly high school football will end in our lifetimes. The lawyers will see to that.

Smoking in public was once a multi-billion dollar enterprise. Look what happened there, over 30 years.

Interestingly, one suggestion I heard was to actually get rid of helmets and all those pads (a la Rugby, Australian fb). Then playerS wouldn't be so inclined to hit each other so hard. Would people still watch the game? I don't watch it anyway, so, whatever.

They have a concept in the law known as assumption of risk which is solidified with a written waiver. Read the back of your ticket the next time you go to a baseball game...if you or a family member take a foul ball to the noggin at 100 mph while minding your business eating popcorn...too bad. Same thing with your ski ticket.

Anyhow...it is laughable to think that they would ever get rid of high school football in places like Texas, or anywhere south of the Mason Dixson. It is so ingrained in their culture that they would rather chop off their own hand than give it up. Somehow I don't think they care about what Terry Bradshaw and the NY Times think in places like Plano, Texas. Legislatures can take care of the trial lawyers with statutory immunity/tort caps for the schools etc.

We already have a tort cap for public entities, and a two year statute of limitations in this state. If you are a former jock good luck trying to sue the U of O when the traumatic brain injury manifests itself in your late 30's or early 40's because those rights, assuming you had them to begin with because you signed a waiver, expired two years after you left college in your early 20's.

I think we should all acknowledge that college football is a farm system for the NFL and make the NFL underwrite all the costs for their farm system, freeing the colleges and universities to invest in something 'educational', rather than providing entertainment for the beer-swilling masses.

Terry Bradshaw might be right. But, although he was among four exceptionally good quarterbacks drafted by the NFL in the 1970 NFL Draft, he wasn't one of the three who were considered to be capable of deep thought.

Unlike with smoking, a lot of allegations but a lack of hard data to back them up......

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/05/junior_seau_s_suicide_are_concussions_responsible_.html

Thank you for admitting that the Ducks are becoming a dynasty. It is a wonderful view from the top.

See, LLP is correct about soccer and the ""timbers army" shall be victorious. Bring on the jesters...

Banning smoking in public was more about protecting non-smokers than smokers. Nobody is forced to play football, and when you do, you sign lots of waivers. I think this has more to do with NFL retiree health benefits than the end of football.

The article is from the NYT, which for me means to read it with a BIG grain of salt. Will they change the game of football, well, throughout the years the game has changed (once upon a time the forward pass was unknown). Some changes are good, some are bad, cramping down on hitting won't improve the game for the spectators; it's already called the No Fun League. When they think/expect that I'm going to get the same enjoyment watching a kickball game as I do from watching a football game; yeah, makes me look forward to the day I meet my maker.

Smoking in public was once a multi-billion dollar enterprise. Look what happened there, over 30 years.

Bingo.

The wussification of America continues...Sad....

I read that the big issue is whether Pop Warner and high school football programs will be able to acquire the insurance necessary to cover their football teams.

Football is so popular that it's hard to imagine it going away. But I suspect people said the same thing about boxing and horse racing 50 years ago.