The Super Bowl party invitation came more than a month before the actual event. We had to decline another one that came just a few days later. Tough luck, dude! The buzz of who is hosting the party this year was there for an even longer time in our circles already. WhatsApp group smack got busier too, predicting who is going to win. Our WhatsApp group admin efficiently changed the group icon to Super Bowl LVII with a triumphant grin on his face. And mind you, none of the teams that my friends and I support made it to the conference championships, let alone the Super Bowl. Our spouses agreed on a menu and the question 'who is bringing what' got settled amicably. Outfits were finalized. Some of the kids in our group planned their own parties with their college friends, while some were convinced, others cajoled, and the rest were simply 'told' to join us. I wasn't even 10 minutes late from the time on the invite and was shocked to see that even the habitual late-comer friends were already glued to the TV with food in their laps and another half hour to the start of the game. The host was generous, and the evening turned out to be quite an affair, and a fun one, too. The game was a face-off of the two black quarterbacks for the first time in football history. And the young athletes did not disappoint at all. The match-up of the two teams was of high quality, and it began with the Philadelphia Eagles dominating over the Kansas City Chiefs, as predicted, in the first half. But the Chiefs retaliated in the second and won in a true nail-biter, against all odds and pundits’ speculation. It was exciting and a real thriller. What else would you hope for from a Super Bowl?
“Rihanna is perhaps the only pop star so relaxed and unencumbered by expectations that she could turn such a high-stakes occasion into a cool and casual jaunt.”
Well, there is more. Our teenage daughters came running downstairs to the basement during half-time, where the guys were watching the game on a bigger screen. The girls wanted to see their favorite pop star perform at the Half-Time show. There was another mega spectacle within the womb of this football extravaganza of global magnitude. Pun intended, as Rihanna showcased her much-anticipated performance during half-time and revealed a surprise baby bump. The 13-minute and Apple-sponsored performance was sensational, and she made it look so easy, as the New Yorker magazine commented, "... Rihanna is perhaps the only pop star so relaxed and unencumbered by expectations that she could turn such a high stakes occasion into a cool and casual jaunt." It was a big moment for her since in the past, she had refused to perform at the Super Bowl in support of Colin Kaepernick. The former quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, Kaepernick raised his voice for the black community by kneeling during the national anthem before games, to protest racial inequality and police brutality 5-6 years ago. Rihanna's obviously come around since then and could not let pass the opportunity to 'represent' the community after some rethinking from her previous posture. The Super Bowl has something for everyone and is indeed too big a platform for celebrities to ignore, leaving behind several politico-social nuances and messages that become fodder for debates, discussions, and gossip for weeks and months.
As Rihanna ascended away from the stage to heaven somewhere or backstage, and when the guys at the party finished sharing their thoughts on her performance, the discussion swiftly and seamlessly moved to the ads during the Super Bowl. The consensus was that Dunkin' Donuts stole the show featuring Ben Affleck and JLo in its rather simple but genius ad. According to reports, each 30-second ad cost companies over $6 million, with some exceeding $7 million, during the Super Bowl this year. No wonder these companies put a lot of thought and creative ideas behind these ads and make them extremely entertaining to capture their audiences in the meager 30 seconds that they have.
We were all having a good time. The Super Bowl had brought us together again and we were enjoying that. None of us wanted to bring back the conversation to the Damar Hamlin episode that occurred just 6 weeks ago. We debated about it only recently among friends. During the present Super Bowl game, Mahomes reaggravated his ankle injury when a defender tackled him in the second quarter. Mahomes was clearly in pain and was limping. We were all concerned for him, but it did not necessarily spark another debate among us about injuries in football. The Eagles and Chiefs were butting their heads for 3 hours and it was entertaining for us all.
But little did they know that another former NFL offensive lineman from the Jacksonville Jaguars, Uche Nwaneri, died from a heart attack just hours before the Damar Hamlin incident. Nwaneri was 38.
Six weeks ago, it was a Monday Night game when the Buffalo Bills were taking on the Cincinnati Bengals. Damar Hamlin, a ‘safety’ in the defense line-up tackled Tee Higgins of the Bengals, and soon after collapsed on the field in real-time with thousands witnessing in the stadium and millions watching on live TV. Damlin's heart literally stopped as he suffered a cardiac arrest and the medical team rushed to the field. The football world was in shock. Fellow players were stunned. The medical team did enough to revive his heartbeat and transported Damar to the hospital where he was given immediate care. While Damar fought for his life in the hospital, the game went on another day. Doctors eventually diagnosed Damar's condition as Commotio Cardio, which is a rare disease that caused Damar's heart to go out of rhythm when he collided with Higgins. Damar received high-class treatment and was on the way to recovery after a few days in intensive care. Millions of fans prayed and sent their best wishes for his health and expressed their heart-warming support. But little did they know that another former National Football League or NFL offensive lineman from the Jacksonville Jaguars, Uche Nwaneri, died from a heart attack just hours before the Damar Hamlin incident. Nwaneri was 38.
CTE is a form of dementia, and this sort of brain degeneration is caused by repeated head traumas. It can only be diagnosed by autopsy.
Chris Nowinsky, in his New York Times article, ‘Football is Deadly, but not for the Reasons You Think', draws our attention to a serious point when he argues that this single 'terrifying' and 'dramatic' incident with Damar is taking the limelight away from the chronic medical conditions that are a much greater danger to players. Not taking away from the seriousness of Damar's health and the concern of his fans, Nowinsky hopes this incident doesn’t distract us from a larger problem at hand, about injuries in football. Chris is a neuroscientist, former athlete, and founder of 'The Concussion Legacy Foundation'. His foundation has been working to promote smarter sports and safer athletes through education and innovation and aims to end Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy or CTE, through prevention and research in collaboration with researchers at the Boston University CTE Center. CTE is a form of dementia, and this sort of brain degeneration is caused by repeated head traumas. It can only be diagnosed by autopsy. Nowinski's foundation and Boston University CTE Center have been collecting data on former football players. In the last 6 years, we saw the demise of several former football players. Among them was Shane Olivea, who was just 38 years of age. Mark Tuerk was 40, Taylor Whitley 38, Jeremey Nunley 46, Nate Hobgood-Chittick 42, Rodrick Monroe 40, Ron Brace 29, Quentin Grores 32, and Damion Cook 36. They all died of chronic medical conditions associated with concussions in football. There are scores of other players who are struggling with the conditions linked to their football careers but are not talked about anywhere.
““There is something about it that seems sort of like Jonathan Swift to me.” ”
The science of concussions in sports is overwhelming. The data has been there for decades. Concussion in sports has been studied for over a century now. Shocking Syndrome has been talked about in boxing for a long time. Science on head trauma has been studied and terms such as 'punch drunk' have been in our vocabulary for many years. We know that micro-blood vessels rupture with these repeated bumps on the brain, causing confusion, temporary and brief loss of consciousness, and then some. Scientific and medical papers have documented these conditions since the 1880s. According to a recent article in New Yorker magazine, ‘The Forgotten History of Head Injuries in Sports’ by Ingfei Chen, a medical historian at Clarkson University, Stephen Casper, has been tracing the history of such documentation on concussions and head trauma and will soon be publishing it with the Johns Hopkins University Press. However, CTE skeptics have tangled the debate in a spider-like web and have prolonged the deliverance of any definitive and clear guidelines, behind the excuse of attaining scientific rigor. There are many aspects of CTE that will further evolve and need to be clarified but it does not by any means negate the wealth of knowledge that we already have on neurodegenerative disease. Chen’s article notes that the longitudinal studies suggested addressing the rigorous scientific inquiries would take 50-70 years, while millions of our kids in this country will continue 'butting their heads on the field' in the meantime.
There are many aspects of CTE that will further evolve and need to be clarified but it does not by any means negate the wealth of knowledge that we already have on neurodegenerative disease.
There are more and more stories of such injuries that we come across every season of football. There are so many others that never make the news at the school or college levels. There is no dearth of data and yet scientists are bickering with no conclusive end in sight. One wonders if it is a real pursuit of scientific perfection or delaying tactics aiding strong football lobbies. Casper was quoted in the New Yorker magazine article, "There is something about it that seems sort of like Jonathan Swift to me." The magazine elaborates his point further on Jonathan Swift's Gulliver Travels when Gulliver visits a place called Lagado and doctors of 'the Academy' keep performing useless experiments while the nation suffers in poverty.
Science on head trauma has been studied and terms such as 'punch drunk' have been in our vocabulary for many years.
Every year the Super Bowl showdown becomes increasingly lucrative. Super Bowl LVII is estimated to bring in $600 million for Arizona, where the game was hosted at the State Farm Stadium in Phoenix. This includes sales from the tickets which were averaging over $6000 in a stadium of 73,000 capacity. FOX channel's viewership of the game was a record 113 million this year. With additional ad revenue and Apple’s sponsorship of the Half-Time show, the company expects to raise $600 million, which is as much as Arizona is expected to raise from local revenue including higher sales at bars, restaurants, hotels, airports, and overall increased local spending, on top of ticket sales. And while the NFL does not disclose the value of its contracts with TV networks, according to an article from the CNBC website it is estimated that CBS, NBC, and FOX paid $3 billion per year to the NFL for a period between 2013-2022. The article goes on to estimate that the NFL distributes roughly $8 billion in total to the 32 NFL teams each year. Unsurprisingly, Patrick Mahomes signed a 10-year, $450 million contract with the Kansas City Chiefs, including a $10 million signing bonus, $141,481,905 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $45 million. The stakes are enormous.
“Fantasy NFL is an industry worth around $70 billion. If it was a country, it would be the 68th highest GDP in the world.”
And this is not all, obviously. Fantasy NFL is an industry worth around $70 billion. If it was a country, it would be the 68th highest GDP in the world. Fox Sports explains it much more eloquently as "an industry built upon a team manager picking a fantasy squad out of the ranks of the NFL and then earning points depending on how those players will perform on the field, is worth more than the market value of all the goods and the services produced by 120 actual countries." Forbes reported that around 32 million Americans play fantasy football, and they will spend up to $15 billion on it in the form of league fees, website prize fees, and information materials. It further estimates that indirectly, Americans will spend $55 billion worth of person-hours on checking scores, team performances, and trading players on the web.
And my friends and I contribute to those person-hours spent on fantasy football. It's addictive, gives us a reason to talk smack, engages us, and from time to time becomes a reason for us to get together over a chicken wings party. The whole ecosystem of football is completely engrained in our lives from a socioeconomic perspective. It is hard to get out of it even though common sense argues that there must be more checks and balances on the game. More stringent protocols need to be in place to make the game safer, and the current protocols need to be enforced more rigorously. However, that's not the case. Tua Tagovaioloa, a Miami Dolphins quarterback, had a concussion on a Sunday game this season and he was brought back to the field on the Thursday game, just four days later. On Thursday, he got another hit and a concussion that resulted in a seizure-like decorticate posturing that could have serious consequences for the 24-year-old kid. The NFL insisted that it did not breach current concussion protocol but admitted that protocol could be modified further. However, there is hesitancy to make these protocols more stringent as it makes the game less exciting and boring.
In Peter Landesman's 2015 biopic, Concussion, actor Will Smith was featured as Dr. Bennet Omalu, who was an accomplished forensic neuropathologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and made the first discovery of CTE when he published the first paper on the subject in 2005. The immigrant doctor from Nigeria was shown in the movie to be at dangerous odds with the powerful NFL. The movie was expected to stir the football community, but it did not make a mark at the box office and was soon forgotten. When Will Smith was asked what his expectations were from the now-flopped movie, his reply was quoted in the Independent newspaper as, "I thought that the Concussion would have a bigger impact. I knew it would be hard because people love the game, but the science is so overwhelming, and it is something that we really need to take a look at. I thought that the people would get behind the mission of that. I was surprised that the people were absolutely like, 'Nope, I am not stopping watching football, so I don't want to know."
“I was surprised that the people were absolutely like, ‘Nope, I am not stopping watching football, so I don’t want to know.’”
No wonder it's Super Sick Monday on the day after Super Bowl in our country. An estimated 18.8 million people, who do not show up to work on the day, call in sick. Maybe understandably so after all the booze and party and late-night indulgences. Tennessee has gone a few steps further where a lawmaker is vying for a national holiday on Super Bowl Monday to recover from game day festivities. He has already sponsored a bill that will make “Super Bowl Monday” a state holiday.
No one, neither the Concussion Legacy Foundation nor the Boston University CTE Center, nor writers like myself, is calling to ban the game altogether but there must be more seriousness in making the game safer for our kids.
The love of the game is paramount. For many, it’s part of being an American. Football is much too woven in the fabric of American culture and it’s become difficult to make any changes easily. No one, neither the Concussion Legacy Foundation nor the Boston University CTE Center, nor writers like myself, is calling to ban the game altogether but there must be more seriousness in making the game safer for our kids. My friends also love this game. We laugh, cry, and agonize over it with each other. Our stance also differs from one another on this subject. We are conflicted and torn on the question of whether it is even ethical to support this game. We are all immigrants to this country and many of our kids were born here. None of us have played football in our lives, and only a few of our kids have. Yet not all of us are willing to give up too much for the game but not all of us think it is necessarily our reason for being an American as well. We are divided on the debate. Some of us believe that there are so many other wonderful things that make us proud Americans; things that are safer and smarter for our kids. Hopefully, on an urgent basis, we will all come up with creative ideas to keep the American sports fabric intact and yet make it safe and enjoyable for everyone. Until then, the kids in this country will have to keep injuring their heads on the field, unfortunately.
P.S. Did I mention that my friends and I are browns? Not the Cleveland Browns, but browns of South Asian descent who grew up playing cricket, in fact! That's a story for another day.