NFL Concussion-gate: Admission of Guilt or Token Concession?

The NFL decision to pay over 4200 retired players, who are suffering from concussion related brain injuries, $765 million over 20 years will go down in history with other monumental settlements; monumental in terms of the lost to the plaintiffs and gain to the defendants. They will go down in history with major corporations like the Wall Street bailout, British Petroleum (BP), and Exxon Mobil; companies that paid relatively small settlements in terms of their overall financial worth and the damages they were accused of or caused.

In the case of the NFL, which consists of 32 teams with values averaging around $1.17 billion, it generates $10 billion annually.  Thus, $765 million over 20 years, a mere $38.25 million per year, is a very small percentage of its annual revenue.  Even if the NFL matched the plaintiffs’ request for $2 billion, their lost would have been minimal.  This settlement is also minimal with the increasing number of retired players who are reporting complications from brain injuries associated with concussions.

This was an opportunity for the NFL to take a stance and be a leader in being more concerned about the health and well being of the employees and former employees than their brand and bottom line.  This was an opportunity for the NFL to use their popularity and profits to contribute to the research on traumatic brain injuries and make a statement about its stance on corporate healthcare. 

Yet again, we have another multibillion-dollar corporation that misses an opportunity to express corporate responsibility. Instead, their token concessions admit their quilt and demonstrate their corporate irresponsibility and greed.