After the Super Bowl in February, two economists, Tyler Cowen and Kevin Grier, wrote an article called "What Would The End Of Football Look Like?" and if you can get through the pre-apocalyptic stridency and the snarky academic glee of reaching a sports-audience instead of the usual dozen or so readers of dry academic journals, their argument makes enough sense to be worth reading. The twin threats that they perceive, in a nutshell, are massive crippling liability judgments for concussion-related illnesses and industries and a gradual refusal of more and more parents (and school systems) to allow children to play football in the first place. Their argument tends to ignore (or belittle) the cultural relevance of football - they are economists, after all - and doesn't address what must be similar crises in boxing (obviously) and ice hockey, to name two other sports with an element of the knockout. And the fact is, football without collisions is not football. If it is merely a game of positioning your players more strategically than the other team, it is simply human-scale chess.
