http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/intelligence_squared/2012/04/the_next_slate_intelligence_squared_debate_is_may_8_why_malcolm_gladwell_thinks_we_should_ban_college_football_.html

He's 100% correct. I made that call 3 years ago. Ray Easterling and Dave Duerson, now, maybe, Junrior Seau, were late to the bandwagon. 

In addition to the medical rational, the sport is corrupt financially at the collegiate level. No coach deserves $3million/year, for starters.

If pro football didn't get on the networks at the same time that color TV was invented, we'd all be a bit better off. The coincidence, in my opinion, made the game.

Whoa. Let's hold on here a moment. Yes, there are some troubling questions to be answered and yes, rules changes and perhaps technological innovations are required. But no way in hell is the American public going for a ban on football. That idea is DOA. Football has become America's game surpassing baseball in popularity. BTW, the sport is no more corrupt then the one we are all here to talk about.

Let's get rid of the corruption and find ways to protect the players better.

Whoa. Let's hold on here a moment. Yes, there are some troubling questions to be answered and yes, rules changes and perhaps technological innovations are required. But no way in hell is the American public going for a ban on football. That idea is DOA. Football has become America's game surpassing baseball in popularity. BTW, the sport is no more corrupt then the one we are all here to talk about.

Let's get rid of the corruption and find ways to protect the players better.

Couldn't possibly be more wrong.  Gladwell's two main points are that we are exploiting and maiming college football players.  The exploitation argument is filled with holes.  Thousands of high school players compete with the hope of being awarded a college scholarship.  Many of these players end up playing Division 2 or Division 3 football (or even 1-AA), where scholarships either don't exist or are partial at most.  If the demand of players exceeds the supply of those who can realistically receive a full scholarship, how can this be considered exploitation?  And, to those who have earned the fuill scholarship, it's time to stop looking at that person as some type of victim for not being paid to play.  Do you know how much college costs these days?  Saving that money times four is a real, tangible benefit.    And of course, some of these players are being trained for lucrative professional careers playing the sport (or are being trained to lead in some other field).  As for the maiming, certainly more attention than ever is being paid to long-term neurological risks.  What is very realistic is to someday see a sport where the skill level pales in comparison to today as more and more people opt not to take these risks by playing the sport.  Nevertheless, I'm not convinced we'll ever see the day where supply exceeds demand.  And the great hope is that technological advances to equipment will be such where the games does become safer to play.

 Many schools tried this at the beginning of the last century (the Cal-Stanford "Big Game" for many years was a rugby contest). The fact is so long as school districts keep cutting drama and arts programs to keep the football teams intact, so long as parks and rec departments put up goalposts instead of soccer goals or volleyball courts, so long as TV advertisers spend millions for 30 sec. spots during the Super Bowl and big bowl games, so long as schools like Oklahoma and Ohio St can justify their existence through gate receipts in excess of $10 million per home game, well college football isn't going anywhere. But many schools have been priced out of it and many of the "top" colleges in the country are without football.

Is GW better off without a football team? You bet. Does having a football team help the academics at Florida State or Nebraska (or FIU or UT-San Antonio)? Probably not. 

Here's predicting that college football will outlast Malcolm Gladwell and Slate Magazine. 

 It will only become an issue if there is financial liability attached that cannot be placed on the indavidual in the form of a waiver. In other words if the is strong exposure to risk for colleges and school districts than the unimaginable will become very real. It is about money

Not having college football continues to be one of the more endearing aspects of GW's athletic department. While it's colorful on TV and cause for a heckuva tailgate in the flyover states, it maims kids, warps the academic and financial priorities of institutions, and twists athletes into thinking they have careers in pro sports, when they do not, to an extent far greather than college basketball, where the opportunities, globally, are greater. Who knows, professors at schools like Penn State and Alabama may actually get funds to teach academics if it happened. And then we can finally end the agony of world's worst postseason in either amateur or professional sports.

A splendid idea. Where do I sign?

NYTimes: "Study links winning football to declining academics"

 I FREAKIN' LOVE college football, but I also don't disagree with hardly anything Gladwell said at the link above. It's a quandary. If college football went away I would eliminate one of the great, TOTALLY unnecessary time-sucks in my life. I can't imagine any scenario where college football died, but as pointed out in the argument at one point sports like boxing and horse-racing dominated the sporting landscape to the extent NO ONE could ever imagine they'd be anything but all-powerful.

Didn't we fight a Civil War over the right of our southern states to play major college football, Herve? And didn't Ohio State lose that war? And doesn't the SEC have an under-the-table agreement with The Mars Company, to use M&M colors for its teams' helmets?

Sure, there are entire segments of our politics and our economy that are symbiotic with pro and college football, but this concussion stuff is just the tip of the iceberg. Then, there's the bounties, which have been around forever.

It would be nice if college football existed so deserving "kids" could learn life skills like showing up on time to practice, and studying and working hard and learning, so they could get scholarships to play ball, to then learn a profession, and so on...

But it would be so much more efficient for the very same kids to skip the football and the practices, and just study more and get smarter, and get academic grants. Or would that somehow screw over the colleges and their football teams?

If you want to get over college football, Herve, I can tell you it does pass with age and with distance from your alma matre. Or, you can read William Faulkner, or listen to Andy Griffin, "What it was, was Football." Most of life is absurd, but football? Moreso.

Basketball, though, is ballet, mathmatics, and music, and even better when its Buff and Blue.

The writing is on the wall - football is in trouble -- In the long term.  The concussion problem is the subtext for the whole Bounty-Gate issue.  And this is the second big change - look at the fines and suspensions for hard hits in the NFL. If football leagues can't find technology or rules changes that protect players better, you simply are going to have fewer and fewer parents letting their kids play. 

The curious solution is to play with no helmets so guys simply can't hit like they used to.  Interestingly mixed martial arts isn't resulting in the same kinds of brain injuries as in boxing.  The key seems to be the padded boxing gloves that allow boxers to not break their hands and not smash the other guy's head in the same kind of dramatic way but just pound pound away.

 Depends on who you ask

RE: No helmets.

1) There was a time when some teams padded the outside of their helmets. What was that for? To protect the wearer, or his blocker/tackler? Did it work, or did it just look too stupid to continue?

2) I can understand the desire by the pros and by the collegiate elites to maintain the status quo respecting football, but I cannot fathom the idea of some schools to add football, especially at the lower levels. (UNCC, ODU, etc.). It's just like flushing cash down the toilet, and hoping somebody will pay to watch.