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Declining participation, Declining attendance and a declining insurance market. All spell change for the sport.

If football goes, so does every sport—even soccer—with the possibility of head injuries. We'll be left with 40-year-old men living in ma's basement playing "e-sports."

Football is the last bastion of manhood in America.

I don't think it goes away but we are already seeing changes to the sport. Look at the rule changes protecting quarterbacks from getting hit. Dick Butkus would be banned from the NFL if he played today. Look for change to make it more patty cake then violent collisions. Strategy will become more important than contact.

It won't go away. I stake my cat's virginity on that one.

I just see a threat to it being dumbed down some. I see it going thru a big phase for a while where everyone's backing off, but the dust will settle, the demand is there + the passion to play is there, and it'll rise some. But it won't be what we'd see as Optimal (for viewing pleasure).

Been saying it for years in this forum, Traumatic Brain Injury is going to cause the end of college and High School football within a decade. Without major rules and equipment changes the sport is doomed. As it is, college football is a cash cow that sucks up Athletic Department revenue like a black hole.

Conferences like the MAC are going to have to make some tough choices in the next decade about if they want to continue this sport without major changes. It is just too costly.

I don't think it will ever fully go away, but there is a reason that flag football and 7v7 football is on the sharp rise in youth sports these days.

I think boxing would be the first to go. :)

i honestly think flag football will continue to take off. The problem with football isn't going to be that people are unwilling to play it, but rather that nobody is willing to insure it.

(01-21-2019 04:02 PM)SilentStryk09 Wrote:  i honestly think flag football will continue to take off. The problem with football isn't going to be that people are unwilling to play it, but rather that nobody is willing to insure it.

Good point.

Also a lot easier to find usable soccer fields than football fields.