Football Absorbs A Knockout Blow
Fortune|September 15,2017

As the evidence mounts that the sport is hurting its players, a multibillion-dollar cultural and entertainment colossus looks ever more deflated.

Tom Huddleston Jr.
Football Absorbs A Knockout Blow

IT WAS A FINDING heard ATHLETICS around the sports world. Researchers at Boston University announced in July that they had detected evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in 110 donated brains of former NFL players. They had studied 111. The result suffered from selection bias—the brains had been donated because those men had demonstrated symptoms of the degenerative brain disease—but the report’s ironclad takeaway is that the illness is far more prevalent in pro football players, subject to years of repeated hits to the head, than in the general public. The unavoidable conclusion: Football’s concussion problem is far worse than originally thought.

The results highlight an existential crisis for America’s most popular sport. This fall, NFL fans will have to wonder whether the next bone-crunching tackle they see on the gridiron will haunt their favorite player for years to come. And if it seems likely that it will, can they stand to keep watching?

This story is from the September 15,2017 edition of Fortune.

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This story is from the September 15,2017 edition of Fortune.

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