No offense, but your argument is silly. The golf analogy especially. There are what....150 golfers on the PGA tour? The very best of the best...out of the tens of millions who play golf? Are you seriously advancing the proposition that the absence of Tiger Woods from any tournament doesn't affect revenue? Check the TV ratings for golf on the tournaments where Tiger is playing and the ones where he isn't playing.
Same holds true for professional football. The college game is another world completely. Entertaining? Yes. But, an exemplar of the best players in the world? Not even close? The difference in the speed and intensity of defensive pursuit in the NFL as opposed to college isn't even close.
The players in the NFL risk life and limb to pursue their dreams and provide you with entertainment every Sunday for six months out of the year. There's plenty of money to go around. Why not take care of them after they are crippled or brain-damaged as a result?
Originally Posted by timpage
No offense taken, I'm hoping the silliness is at least in part due to being against the norm.
I am not advancing that Tiger doesn't affect revenue; that would immediately dismiss reason. I identified him as a special talent, because he is the best, he can do things few contemplate, he's got personality, and, sadly, he's black where few have been black before (apologies to Calvin Peete and Jim Thorpe. Interesting, why isn't Beyonce complaining about Tiger still being virtually alone in that regard?). My point is more along the Bull Durham principle that, after the select few, there is but a fraction of a stoke difference that would be further mitigated with time and resources.
Same thing with college vs. the NFL. The athletes aren't as good, but there are hundreds of thousands of them, enough to supply all the NFL and more if they didn't have to study and dedicate time to other things. Why should one guy marginally better get millions while the others sell cars? And why does it have to be the best talent to be entertaining? People still go to Sandler movies and they've sucked for a solid decade.
Finally, the players in the NFL do not risk life and limb to entertain me, or you, they do it to compete and be the best. Had Jerry Jones built his stadium first I might agree (nice building Jerry, what do we do now?); he didn't. The game came, then the money, then the greed. Were there no money there'd still be boys beating the shit out of each other in a field. I don't like the owners either. But the original point was that it is bullshit to ask for more money due to the risk and then use American judicial resources (why we are in the political thread) to sue for more money when that risk becomes real.
Of course I think they should be cared for. But they should be cared for with resources set aside by all parties before the champagne, the limos, the broads and the dapper suits are considered.
And for any football player to claim he didn't know there was risk of serious, debilitating injury would be as unreasonable as me claiming Tiger doesn't increase revenue. Maybe if you go way back there were some mistreated guys, but they hung up their pads long ago.
I'm all for sport, competition must be nourished, but we pay too much for entertainment.