re: Is college football going to end as we know it within the next decade?

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And the two are connected. Rich people would rather have their kids play soccer, basketball, or baseball.

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They already do.

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Soccer in the US is pay to play

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Which is my point. The only kids going through our development programs come from wealthy families.

More rich people steering their children to soccer from football will have a marginal effect on both sports.

Not because of CTE. My prediction is that when they dig deeper, they're going to find it is a lot more complicated than simply "playing football and getting bashed in the head." That data isn't available now because the research has been focused on football (because that's were the $$$$ lives).

For example, a significant case was just found in a patient who had no concussion history at all and no symptoms currently being blamed on CTE.

Further, when you get down to youth sports, football isn't the biggest place for concussions. That sport is Girl's soccer.

If football declines, it will be due to changing tastes in sports and a general reduction in sports participation in general.

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Families that are on the higher end of the economic spectrum won't be letting their kids play it. Soccer will gain massive ground in this country soon.

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The majority of SEC lineups are kids from low income families. Soccer is meh; I'd rather watch rugby. I don't see SEC football declining very much, too many generations and money involved. I think they'll continue to study ways and enforce rules to keep players from leading with their heads (targeting, equipment technology).

That's fair. What it really needs is Title IX reform so Men's Soccer can find a place at more colleges.

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Yes. I think that within the next 10-15 years, if football is around at all, you will hardly be able to recognize it.

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I think there will be significant improvements in protective equipment that will transform the game especially on offense aka offensive players won't worry about injuries and will therefore go after and make plays in traffic that they might not have made previously. Then again, defensive players won't be worried about injuring themselves or hurting offensive players so they will be making spectacular plays also. Just imagine an advanced body armor that is so good and so flexible that you could literally run full speed into a brick wall and not be injured. It's coming. It won't stop bullets but it won't have to in order to protect players.

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Just imagine an advanced body armor that is so good and so flexible that you could literally run full speed into a brick wall and not be injured

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Your armor would need to suspend the laws of physics.

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We'll invest in better safety equipment and modify tackling. Defense will be nerfed but the market likes high-octane offense anyways.

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That won't do a thing. Football players will continue to get CTE as long as they are colliding into each other at high speeds. The only way to drastically reduce CTE rates among football players is to eliminate tackling altogether.

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within the next 10-15 years, if football is around at all, you will hardly be able to recognize it.

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Hopefully within that time frame better helmet technology will be available. If that doesn’t happen, i can see football changing drastically.

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Football has constantly had to be changed for the past 100 years due to safety concerns, and not only is it still around, it has gotten better from it.

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Indeed. Lets not forget that make in the day the game was so violent that Teddy Roosevelt, yes, the President most likely to say "I really like to kill things, have I ever told you about the time I shot a Spanish soldier? Jolly good fun!", stepped in established rules and regulations to tune down the violence. When something is so dangerous that Teddy Roosevelt says you need to ease up...

I would guess we continue to push the concussion tests and no blows to the head trend even further. Meanwhile, much as people poured a ton of money into developing a safer artificial turf, football will spend a butt load of money on developing even better equipment.

The problem being, of course, that the best body armor in the world cannot stop your brain from sloshing around inside your skull and getting a concussion. Lessen the risk of it happening yes, but never prevent it.

Or we decide to say to hell with it and go the exact opposite route and adopt Australian Rules Football or Rugby. Either way it will still be here in 10 years. Its too popular of a sport to go away that quickly.

Basketball, baseball, and soccer will become more and more popular though as people think of those as safer sports.