I'm pondering this question while watching the Rangers-Caps game seven. They're gonna take us into overtime, and I hate that. As an old guy, I like my regular bed-time. This OT shit can mess up my body clock for weeks.
Anyway, it's occurred to me that pro sports as we know them may not be around in a few years. Why?
Lawyers.
Yup. If you like watching the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat on your TV, you'll soon be able to thank lawyers for making it go away. The NFL just signed off on a billion dollar settlement in hopes it will make a class-action concussion lawsuit go away, which it won't because lawyers are already appealing the settlement!
Oddly enough, the NFL is the only one of the big four pro leagues NOT run by a lawyer. Bettman, Silver, and Manfred all supervise their fiefdoms with the benefit of law degrees in their back pockets. Silver and Manfred might not have too much to worry about in the near future, but the NHL is living on borrowed time.
If the NFL succumbed to a concussion class-action to the tune of a billion dollars, what do you think will happen to the NHL? They move twice as fast as NFL guys and their helmets aren't half as sturdy, and you have twenty years of Don Cherry's Rock 'em Sock 'em videos archived for evidence!
Already you've got this class action.
That class action.
And now Steve Montador's folks are wanting in on the action.
Seems to me when a couple of 200+ pounders run into each other at 30mph, somebody's gonna get hurt. That's a no-brainer. It should have been a no-brainer to those hockey parents who were making all those sacrifices to help their kids make the bigs...
Here's a prediction; in ten years pro football will mean flag football, and pro hockey will be no-contact.
Thank the lawyers.
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