Whether you like it or not, the NFL is an extremely popular sport. Yesterday’s Super Bowl was the most watched Super Bowl in history. As a matter of fact in Canada, 8 million of us watched the game. That is twice as many people that watched the Grey Cup.
This is what this should tell you. American football is very popular. Many want to watch and many want to play it.
Note: I’m using the term American football, because many people use the term football for soccer). It’s important to clarify the difference for this discussion.
Because the question I’m asking is would you let your kids play American football.
This link is an interesting article. It’s an article from a parent wondering if they would let their kid play football.
Here’s an interesting quote from the post
Football is fun. And football means eating dirt. That’s the tradeoff. Always has been. The game is inherently dangerous, rooted in violence and physical domination, hitting and tackling, knocking your opponent on their ass before they do the same to you. Football breaks bones, shreds ligaments, ruptures internal organs. Occasionally, it kills.
And yet for just about forever, the harm has seemed manageable. Perfectly acceptable. A reasonable price to pay for both Friday Night Lights and weekend tailgating. Because bones heal, and ligaments can be fixed. Deaths are horrific, but freaky and rare. Week after week, season after season, the sport teaches life lessons, rallies communities, provides excitement and entertainment for millions, inspires military flyovers and breast cancer awareness drives. It helps define American masculinity and pays NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s $29.5 million salary. At the youth level, most players walk away from the game with fond memories and without serious, lasting harm; for parents and society alike, football’s rewards largely have outweighed its risks, so much so that even in an era of helicopter parenting and school safety zones, more than four million American children play high school and youth football.
Would you let your kids play American Football?
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