It started as a footnote in the horrific shooting at 345 Park Avenue in Manhattan, where a gunman walked into the midtown office building with a semi-automatic rifle and killed four and severely injured another before killing himself. 345 Park was home to several prominent businesses, including the investment firm Blackstone, real estate firm Rudin Management, and the NFL – all of which were impacted by the shooting. But one, the NFL, went from footnote to more central when it was revealed that the shooter named the League in a suicide note – namely that the NFL was his target in response to his claim that he suffered from CTE, a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated concussions in contact sports like football. To be clear, the shooter played high school football, not the NFL, and there’s no verification that he did indeed suffer from CTE. But the rhetoric behind his attack brought the somewhat dormant but once prominent topic back to the forefront.
Before going any further, it’s worth making a few obvious points. First, the NFL should in no way be held accountable or complicit for Monday’s awful attack, no matter their stance or even contribution to CTE. If you’re looking for accountability, you can start with Congress and the NRA. Second, we have no idea whether the shooter suffered from CTE, regardless of what was written. All we know is that he played high school football and had a clear history of mental illness. Any connection between the two is armchair medicine at best and likely damaging to any real work in this area. And third, I am well aware that this is first a story about the senseless murder of four individuals, and discussing the NFL’s attachment isn’t meant as a distraction of either that narrative nor the pain it’s caused.
That said, the mention of CTE and the NFL provided a surprising twist to a story that already felt sickeningly familiar in a country that expects mass shootings now as a regular feature of daily life. That mainly because despite the enormous space the NFL occupies in our social and economic worlds, we’ve heard surprisingly little about CTE and its impact over the past several years. Only a few years ago, it was postulated that CTE could undo the very fabric of both the sport and the League in this country. In fact, it wasn’t uncommon 10 or 15 years ago for very smart people to say that the NFL would largely go away in 30 years, replaced by less violent pastimes like soccer and lacrosse, not that they don’t bring their own risks. I was involved in some research that showed that football and, by proxy the NFL has serious kinks in the armor, where especially more educated families on the coasts might think twice before letting their kids play. There was a whole lot more to the data, but if you were projecting a trend line, it wouldn’t have been up. And CTE appeared at the center of the likely descent.
But that was then, in the mid-2010’s. Now, high school participation has stabilized and the NFL is more profitable than ever. Even with the decline of network and cable TV, and the NFL may be its greatest lifeline, now there’s a bidding war with the streamers for NFL content. Not to mention the recent financial growth of college football and its expanding playoff system. Where once we imagined American universities would slowly shy away from football because of the increased risk, they’re now running towards it in the way of NIL finances and mega conference deals. So for everyone who said CTE would be the existential threat for football, possibly including myself, well, we were wrong, at least in the moment.
There’s a whole lot of possible reasons for that, some of which includes increased safety and equipment and some of which includes the League’s concussions settlement. A more cynical answer might be that we never really cared as much about CTE as we said we did, but rather it was another cause de celebre that faded with the sunset. Or maybe it’s as simple as this. In the US, we love our football. And it’s going to take a lot more than possible head trauma to change that. Look, we can’t even agree on vaccines right now. So thinking a disease even scientists still don’t fully understand might alter our most cherished pastimes is foolish.
All of which made the mention of CTE in Monday’s terrible tragedy surprising. But I’m guessing it won’t be mentioned for long.
Keith Strudler is the Dean of the College of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him at @KeithStrudler.
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