Boxing Is More Dangerous than Football....Isn't It?
Boxing is undoubtedly a violent sport. It is simply two men in a ring trying to hit each other and evade being hit. Injuries are common, hence the need for "cut men" in each fighter's corner. Blood is a common sight, as are huge welts and bruises.
Some people have a problem with companies such as HBO making money off of a violent form of entertainment. But you rarely hear such things about other sports, even though there is ample evidence that injury and death is common outside of the boxing ring.
If I told you that in America, deaths were more common in football than in boxing, most of you would probably laugh.
However, the Journal of Combative Sport reports that there have been 686 deaths in the United States from boxing. However, there are a few things to keep in mind.
First of all, these reports cover more than boxing as we know it today. The Journal specifically states that they record deaths "in bare-knuckle pugilism, amateur and professional boxing, and Original Toughman."
Secondly, boxing is one of the oldest sports in the world, and the data collected ranges from 1741 to 2006, a period of 265 years. That translates to 2.6 deaths per year.
Conversely, American football has been around a much shorter period of time, with far deadlier consequences. According to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research conducted at the University of North Carolina, there have been 1002 deaths directly due to playing football. This includes players from pick-up games through high school, college, semi-pro and professional.
The data was collected in a much shorter period of time, ranging from 1931 to 2006. It also reports deaths indirectly due to football, which means players died of heat stroke and heart problems, and not by an incident in the game. There were 674 of those type of deaths.
So, in 75 years, there has been an average of 13.4 deaths per year directly caused by playing football. If you add up the deaths indirectly due to football, the average jumps to 22.3 deaths each year.
There are a lot of problems in boxing. Shady promoters, gambling issues and no uniform boxing commission, just to name a few. It needs better direction, and a certain amount of reform, but radicals suggesting boxing should be banned are off the mark. The sport is dangerous, but not as lethal as many would have you believe.
Football on the other hand? Well, it seems to be much more violent. But, hey, most injuries are hidden under all their protective gear. You rarely see blood. Concussions and exploding spleens are invisible to anybody but doctors. Apparently, it's out of sight, out of mind.
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8 Comments:
Great post, thanks for bringing this to attention. WOW!
-FanProphet
great post. and well presented.
with the prospect of more and more middle-aged nfl heroes being paraded out in wheelchairs and walkers, this could be a giant PR nightmare (and hopefully a wakeup call)for the NFL, forcing some changes.
Panger - What is happening to the aging former NFL players is a complete disgrace.
I've been considering and lightly researching this question lately myself. Thanks for the excellent info.
You realize that a lot more people play football than box.
Anon -
Yes, that is a healthy assumption on your part, considering there are 22 people on the football field at once and 2 men in the ring.
Hello.
I was reading your blog. Like you, I am sports obsessed.
I love the NFL, but Korey Stringer's death jolted something. The almost deaths of Mike Utley, Dennis Byrd, etc. are scary. The league has done all it can to keep the players safe, but every collision is dangerous. It makes total sense that the players kneel and pray after the games.
I have a request, and I hope it is not an intrusion.
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Thank you.
eric aka www.blacktygrrrr.wordpress.com
Total number of deaths and deaths per year aren't effectively comparable statistics. You need to determine deaths per capita (something like number of boxing-related deaths per 1000 boxers) to determine which one is actually more dangerous.
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