The Ethical Case for Soccer and a Marketing Tactic for MLS
The Superbowl is coming up on Sunday, and as tradition holds it, the commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell, has an interview before the big game with Bob Costas of NBC. Like a good spokesperson for the league, the commissioner manages to dance around issues like high ticket prices, blackouts, and other negative perceptions of the NFL.
However, one of the topics that comes up every year, and particularly in this interview, is the question that should come up to every person serious about their health: is football a game that people should play, and in particular should parents encourage their young kids to play football?
The interview can be found here (skip to about the 7:30 mark to hear the question and answer). Goodell’s answer, like a good politician, skips around the main issue. He says, and correctly so, that the second highest number of concussions in sports is girl’s soccer.
To me that answer is logically flawed – so what that girl soccer is number two? Playing football is still considerably more dangerous. In fact, read the study here (which is probably where Goodell gets his data from) which says that “Based on the national estimate, the majority of concussions resulted from participation in football (40.5%), followed by girls’ soccer (21.5%), boys’ soccer (15.4%) and girls’ basketball (9.5%).
So essentially in sports played by males, only football results in serious concussion problems, followed by a significant drop of 25% between boys’ soccer and football.
The study also doesn’t include the general damage done to the body by football over soccer. Granted there are injuries in soccer as well, but non-concussion related injuries in football is undoubtedly higher.
In my mind this is an area where Don Garber needs to market significantly in the United States. Amongst boys, and in fact all youth, soccer is the most popular. But when it comes to high school and collegiate play, soccer drops off in popularity. Boys who are playing soccer at the high school level are likely to be interested in watching professional soccer games both live and on television. This doesn’t necessary mean they will go to MLS, but it means they will become a potential consumer that MLS can capitalize on.
The key is to market to the parents to start influencing what sport their children decide to play in. According to the latest census in 2007-2008, 1.1 million boys played football to .383 million playing soccer.
Now, it is clear that the ratio of popularity of football to soccer is not 3:1 – it is significantly higher. Which means that the problem of injuries is already bothering both parents and children alike. The key to the growth of soccer in the United States is to drive home this point even further and alter the grassroots participation in the sport.
It is tough to compete with the NFL’s vast grassroots marketing budget with their NFL Play 60 campaign, but the sell for soccer is much easier.
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Concussions in girls basketball is likely from a one-time unintentional collision and (if the player is rested properly) the player’s brain should heal. Also, basketball players aren’t exposed to the hundreds of sub-concussive hits needed for cumulative damage and the associated diseases (CTE and early onset of dementia). On the other hand, football and boxing are sports where repetitive g-forces to the head are inherent to the game.
Repetitive sub-concussive hits and the long-term damage is what makes youth football participation akin to child abuse. Please stop talking about the “concussion problem” in football…because they keep equivocating to concussions in other sports. No, football has a problem with causing “wear and tear” on the brain leading to progressive degenerative brain disease later in life. Parents should NOT let their kids play football.
Soccer doesn’t have “wear and tear” issues unless a player makes it a point to preform thousands of headers per year…and even that won’t case the same “wear and tear” as football.
Well, I think I made that point already – that even though concussions may be high in other sports, it doesn’t take into account even the non-concussion and head-related injuries.
American football is ingrained into the culture of the US (I will reserve opinion on Canadians). Trying to tell those parents to give up football is like telling them to give up food. Ask Chad Ochocinco about his experiences growing up.
Also, we can’t overlook American sports as a statement about being independent from “foreign sports” like soccer. I understand that you’re trying to hone in the message about child safety but that comes up against the massive marketing power of football powers, coupled with the entrenched interests the permeate the grade school, middle school and high school sports programs across the country. They clearly want soccer to fail and might have succeeded if not for the influx of immigrants.