There is little point in denying it: American Football is a great sport to watch. Relatively easy to understand and with a scoring system similar to that of rugby, it is no surprise that football à l’americaine is becoming more and more popular both in Ireland and the UK.
Due to the NFL Draft and the league-wide salary cap, teams are often evenly matched and the lopsided nature of the Premiership is largely avoided. With impressive viewing figures and three Regular Season games set to be held in Wembley this year, this is, in many ways, a golden period for the NFL in Europe. But while all may seem positive, there is a dark underbelly to the NFL. Namely, its extraordinarily callous treatment of players and its terrible administration.
Some sports, such as rugby, are inherently violent and the NFL is definitely such a sport. Yet while rugby players are coached to tackle and ruck in the safest way possible, NFL players are often treated as modern-style gladiators and the NFL has a long and dubious history of denying the damage that concussions can cause players. Such denials ultimately resulted in a multi-million dollar pay-out to former-players who had had their lives damaged through playing professional football.
Another not so glamourous aspect of the NFL is its recent controversies over domestic violence. Roger Goodell, the current NFL Commissioner and beneficiary of a multi-million dollar contract, was forced to apologise in 2014 over failing to adequately handle several high-profile domestic violence cases, including those of high-profile players Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson.
To top it all off, there is also the NFL’s Breast Cancer Awareness month where, apparently, only a small amount of sales incomegoes to fighting the disease.
As a sporting spectacle, the NFL is a very good product. Yet no one should confuse the product with the terrible way the sport is run.