NFL, former players settle concussion suit for $765 million

[Retro Rob]

I suspect that one of the driving forces motivating the NFL to settle was simply to get the issue out of the public spotlight.

A high profile legal battle between the big corporate football league and sympathetic aging players with dementia just doesn't give the general public warm-and-fuzzy feelings. The other problem is that concussion concerns could derail the entire sport and thus the NFL's industry itself. What would happen if parents no longer allowed their children to play football? What would happen if insurance companies no longer wanted to provide coverage for current and former football players or wanted to deny coverage for football-related injuries?

Hmm... after thinking a little, I have changed my view on this a bit.

The NFL still really won -- they only paid out about a small portion of last year's total revenue, and can legally hide potential life-saving information for the sake of business.

Money can really dehumanize people, and in this case, multi-billion dollar businesses.

 

[Thump553]

For ten percent of last year's revenue the league's involvement in concealing this problem is swept under the rug and they look like good guys. Excellent business decision.

 

[zinfamous]

what a waist they make millions, if they can't handle the risk don't play let alone invest their millions properly to cover themselves. Already over paid as it is, and for the life of me I can never understand why my friends on the left are ok with athlete / celebrity pay when they think CEO's are evil.

Really dumb comparison.

The athletes are the product, they are the labor. They are rather directly compensated based on the value that they generate--ticket sales, merchandising, specific numbers.

It seems to me that they are paid too much, just looking at salaries, but the reality is that their pay is determined by value. If they weren't paid these contracts, then where should the money go? The Owners? lol.....

The owners are the CEOs--and pretty much no one likes them, left or right, because they have a history of making shit tons of cash, regardless of putting out a worthwhile product (if you have a perpetually losing team), and every couple of years any one of them will attempt to bilk a host city out of millions of tax payer money to build a new stadium that they certainly don't need, with the argument that it would generate revenue for the town--which has never been verified by any metric.

Do they really need taxpayer money to build a stadium if it ever comes down to it? Of course they don't--they can pay for that shit themselves, or the NFL should make accessible a general fund to finance these things out of the many billions and billions it generates every year.