By Richard Robeson and Nancy M. P. King of Wake Forest University
In the 2014 PBS Frontline documentary “League of Denial,” an anonymous “NFL doctor” is quoted by neuropathologist Bennet Omalu as saying, “If ten percent of mothers refused to let their sons play football, the NFL would cease to exist.”[1] Among the many possible interpretations of such an apparently simple, straightforward statement is an acknowledgement of the importance of women to the future of football. Professional football is extraordinarily lucrative, and the system from which it draws players depends in large part on attracting adherents at a young age.[2] The current level of women’s involvement in football extends well beyond that of a mother giving or denying consent for her son to participate. Not only are women involved in NFL ownership[3] and management; women are also sports journalists, sideline reporters, and analysts, and an NFL team, the Arizona Cardinals, made history in 2015 by naming Jennifer Welter to its coaching staff.[4] From the standpoint of recognizing talent as the principal criterion of career advancement, or of shattering yet another glass ceiling, such developments are clearly laudable. A related but potentially more problematic trend, however, is the increased participation of women and girls as players in the sport of tackle football — a development that raises the question whether fairness, justice, or something else altogether is at work.
To some, football is at a crisis point, and in some respects at odds with itself. The sport’s popularity continues to grow. In 2016 the Super Bowl, the NFL’s championship game, was broadcast live in 170 countries, and “in almost 25 different languages, including French, German, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish.”[5] Regular-season games are being played in England, Germany, Mexico and Japan, and future plans for extending the League’s global footprint include regular-season games in China.[6] According to some sources, it is inevitable that the League will eventually expand to have teams situated in foreign countries.[7] The NFL’s reported earnings for the 2015 season are expected to exceed $13 billion[8] and this does not include individual team value or revenues.
Counterposed against this bright present and the promise of an even brighter future is increased concern about the long term health effects of playing football, as research[9] and advanced diagnostic techniques[10] connect recurrent mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) and even recurrent sub-concussive impacts to degenerative brain and neurological conditions such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The narrative to which “League of Denial” owes its name and which is the centerpiece of the legal argument that resulted in a $ 1 billion class action settlement against the League — namely, that the NFL knew of the relationship between the sport and CTE but suppressed the evidence — is no longer tenable. Even though the settlement allows the NFL to disavow any wrongdoing,[11] in 2016 testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce, the NFL’s senior vice president for health and safety, Jeff Miller, frankly and unequivocally acknowledged the connections that research had already established.[12]
It has become common to hear that yet another professional player has walked away from the game, citing concerns about developing CTE that outweigh love of the game, fame, or a multi-million dollar salary. One player, Chris Borland, retired from the NFL after only one season,[13] and growing numbers of former players have agreed to donate their brains to MTBI research upon their deaths[14] — which, from an actuarial standpoint, will possibly be much sooner than the deaths of others in their age cohort who did not play football.[15] It is within this context that some girls and young women (and their parents) are claiming that fairness requires allowing girls to play.
In 1993, a landmark court case introduced what might be considered a radical re-interpretation of gender equity in collegiate athletics. Heather Sue Mercer was invited to try out as a placekicker for the Duke University football team, but was ultimately not given a spot on the team, consigned instead to an ambiguous status that she regarded as both insufficiently respectful of her abilities and egregiously exploitative. In the discrimination suit that Ms. Mercer filed, she alleged that her rights under Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 had been violated because then-coach Fred Goldsmith “did not give her a fair chance to become the only female placekicker on a Division I team.”[16] After 12 years and many rounds of litigation, she won, setting an important precedent, but was awarded only $1 in damages.[17]
As we have argued elsewhere, some elements of organized athletics are inherently exploitative.[18] Although it is highly unlikely that a Division I football coach would admit to engaging in behavior inherently exploitative of the young people in his charge, the facts (e.g., the vast sums of money generated by the NCAA, the obverse of which is draconian rules of amateurism and eligibility that prohibit the athletes themselves from receiving even the most trivial remuneration[19]) argue otherwise. So, in a sense, Ms. Mercer insisted upon the right to be exploited in the same manner, and to the same extent, as were her male would-be teammates.
As the placekicker on a state championship high school football team, Heather Sue Mercer already belonged to a cohort of female athletes playing on boys’ football teams. In the years since Mercer v. Duke, this cohort is less likely to make headlines for its mere existence than when someone within it, such as youth football running back Sam Gordon — the first female football player to be featured on a Wheaties box[20] — not only participates but is also wildly successful.[21] It is entirely possible that the success of Sam Gordon and others, some of whom have gone on to play at the collegiate level, portends a radical change in the game of football. What on the one hand is equality of opportunity is on the other hand a form of co-optation: a mother who learned to love the game as a player might be more sanguine about allowing her son (or daughter) to play. Female football players might be, so to speak, a growth sector for the industry.
This development of course also raises some profound ethical questions: How are we to regard the encouragement of participation in a sport from which increasing numbers of people are walking away, for fear (and a high probability)[22] of permanent brain damage? Given that the MTBI research has established neuropathological risk factors for the aggregate effects of recurrent sub-concussive impacts, should any young children, including girls, be encouraged to play tackle football?
Football is by no means the only dangerous sport in which female athletes engage. And participation in sports is certainly not the only arena in which equality for women also means an equal opportunity for bad outcomes like injury and exploitation. The problem posed by women in football is nonetheless particularly stark. At a time when there is virtually no debate within the scientific community about the dangers that football poses to neurological health, we as a society might be well advised to consider whether the increased presence of girls on the playing field is cause for celebration, or cause for regret.
References
[1] PBS, “League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis,” October 8, 2013, available at < http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/league-of-denial/ /> (Last visited 05022016).
[2] N. M. P. King and R. Robeson, “Athlete or Guinea Pig? Sports and Enhancement Research,” Studies in Law, Ethics and Technology 1, no. 1 (2007): 1-17, at 7.
[3] From 1947-2016 there have been nine female owners or part-owners of NFL teams.
Violet Bidwill Wolfner (Chicago Cardinals) first female NFL owner in league history; Carol Davis (Oakland Raiders); Georgia Frontiere (St. Louis Rams); Virginia Halas McCaskey (Chicago Bears); Sharon Hunt Munson (Kansas City Chiefs); Kim Pegula (Buffalo Bills); Mary McLean Wilson (Buffalo Bills); Denise DeBartolo York (San Francisco 49ers); Martha Firestone Ford (Detroit Lions). Details at individual team websites.
[4] D. Urban, “Cardinals Add First Female Coach,” July 27, 2015, available at < http://www.azcardinals.com/news-and-events/article-2/Cardinals-Add-First-Female-Coach/aa370599-8d8e-4e73-85d3-fc77515bf40a> (Last visited 05022016)
[5] G. Price, “Super Bowl 2016: How Many Countries Will Watch Carolina Panthers vs. Denver Broncos?” February 2, 2016 available at
[6] B. Gardiner, “Inside the NFL’s Quest to Build a Truly Global League, “ January 6, 2016, available at
[8] C. Isidore, “NFL revenue: Here comes another record season,” Septemeber 10, 2015, available at
[9] J. Stamm, A. Bourlas, et al., “Age of first exposure to football and later-life cognitive impairment in former NFL players,” Neurology 2015;84:1—7.
[10] W. Weinbaum and S. Delsohn, “Dorsett, others show signs of CTE,” ESPN.com:OTL, April 5, 2014. < http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/9931754/former-nfl-stars-tony-dorsett-leonard-marshall-joe-delameilleure-show-indicators-cte-resulting-football-concussions> [Last visited 05022016].
[11] Alternative Dispute Resolution Center, “Principal Terms of NFL Litigation Settlement,” available at < http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/781879-principal-terms-of-nfl-litigation-settlement.html> [Last visited 05022016]
[12] S. Fainaru, “NFL acknowledges, for first time, link between football, brain disease,” March 15, 2016, available at < http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/14972296/top-nfl-official-acknowledges-link-football-related-head-trauma-cte-first> [Last visited 05022016]
[13] K. Chen, “San Francisco 49ers Rookie Chris Borland Retires After Researching Concussions,” March 17, 2015, available at < http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/16/chris-borland-quits-football-_n_6882894.html?utm_hp_ref=sports&ir=Sports> [Last visited 05022016]
[14] FoxNews.com, “2 more NFL players vow to donate brains to science,” March 4, 2015, available at
[15] S. Barron, M. J. Hein, et al., “Body Mass Index, Playing Position, Race, and the Cardiovascular Mortality of Retired Professional Football Players,” Am J Cardiol 2012;109:889 — 896.
[16] T. Smith, “COLLEGE FOOTBALL; A Kicker Sues, Saying SheWas Treated Unfairly,” September 17 1997, available at < http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/17/sports/college-football-a-kicker-sues-saying-she-was-treated-unfairly.html?scp=2&sq=heather%20mercer%20duke&st=cse> [Last visited 05022016]
[17] Heather Sue Mercer, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Duke University, Defendant-appellant, Andfred Goldsmith, Defendant, 401 F.3d 199 (4th Cir. 2005)
[18] Supra, Note 2.
[19] Summary of NCAA Eligibility Regulations — NCAA Division I, Academic Year 2015-16 available at
[20] G. Zaldivar, “Sensational Sam Gordon Becomes First Female Football Player on Wheaties Box,” November 21, 2012, available at < http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1417644-sensational-sam-gordon-becomes-first-female-football-player-on-wheaties-box> {Last visited 05022016]
[21] M. Geary, “11-year-old girl Sam Gordon has a new football highlight video,” November 20, 2014, available at
[22] F. McGurty, “Study Finds Evidence of Brain Injury in Living NFL Veterans,” April 6, 2016, available at < http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/study-finds-evidence-of-brain-injury-in-living-nfl-veterans/> [Last visited 05022016]
