The men playing this sport are mostly young (under 30) and somewhere soon after their 30th birthday, their career as an NFL player is over - some times due to eroding speed, skills, or commitment, but more often than I think we know it's because they have been injured too many times or one time very badly.
By their late 40s, many have terrible arthritis in their knees, hips, etc. By their 50's or sooner, the repeated concussions, and other brutal elements of the game lead some to dementia, alzheimers and other serious health issues, some of which are life threatening.
But year on year we (as a nation) send our sons off to pee-wee football, middle/high school football and, if they are really skilled, to Division One University programs where everything about their lives is about getting them to the large stadiums (coliseums) to fight the (Nittany) Lions, BullDogs, Screaming Eagles, and other teams. All of this sacrifice goes without a salary. In Div I, you'll get medical care from doctors paid by the University to get you back on the field or off the roster.
If you get injured and can't heal up to return to the arena, pouf goes your "student athlete" scholarship, tutors, free meal plan, time in the glory lights of the 90-100K seat coliseum of the "educational institution", all covered in big $$$ TV contracts, as well as oversized amounts of advertising, none of which explain the Krebs cycle or anything else useful outside of the arena. You are officially up S%## creek without a paddle.
If you survive the college level gladiator battles, you can get paid for being a professional athlete and have a contract giving you 1-3 years (or 1 game) of promised income, but in exchange you give your body and soul to the big dollar machine that is the NFL in the US.
The doctors are the teams doctors (who advertise themselves as the "Official xxxx of the yyyy Team name). If I had a job that required that much medical staff on site at my workplace, I would probably reconsider the quality of the job I have worked so hard to get. But these gladiators don't. They fight in the arena and do get injured, even paralyzed, but almost always are in terrible pain (good thing they have the medics right there). BTW - if my office had to have an x-ray machine in the offices, I would also find that very blood chilling (oh, wait that stuff is in the refrigerator).
And its not just football. I was watching the outdoor NHL hockey game called the Winter Classic and there was no way to miss the resemblance to the Roman Gladiators coming out to slaughter...... whoever they can.
I could add a number of other sports examples, but this blog entry is too long already.
So, where is this all heading?
Can the barbaric treatment / self inflicted harm on these young men being eliminated by replacing them with robo-athletes? I am pretty sure the ratings would crash - and that's one ugly conclusion - that we prefer to see human flesh in brutal battles than robots.
So, next time your son asked if the player laying on the football field is hurt badly, don't say he's not. He probably is. Badly.
Keeping it real that these are genuinely violent events (not really JUST a game) is the first step to figuring out why all the TVs here in the bosom of suburbia spend all day Saturday and Sunday (and Monday night and next season, Thursday night) tuned to football games. I sure hope we figure out why and that we (and I) consider the nature and value of these "sports" and the gladiator athletes on their fields or ice rinks.
Coda: I know there are women involved in all of these sports and I am sure they are being used by this system, but that is a whole 'nother blog entry.
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