Concussion,  one word that no athlete ever wants to hear. A concussion is also known as a mild traumatic brain injury, or MTBI. They are caused by a blow to the head or  violent shaking to the head or body, which as you can imagine is a frequent occurrence in many sports, especially contact sports.

 The two sports with the most concussions are ice hockey and American football, which both have an injury rate around .5 per 1,000 athletic exposures. These rates are so high in these sports because they have the most contact and occur at the fastest rates when compared to other sports. These rates are causing the sport of football to suffer greatly. In recent years, we have seen two sport athletes, Jameis Winston and Russell Wilson, choose to play football over baseball and other sports; however, in the near future this trend is believed to start changing. Sport experts are now starting to question what these two star athletes are going to pick, when in the past it was no question they would pick football. Now players like Kyler Murray, a standout quarterback at Oklahoma University, was drafted and signed a $5 million contract with the Oakland Athletics. He will be a one and done then begin playing professional baseball after this school year. Senior Jeremy Hendricks said, “I feel like this is something that will continue to happen and that the popularity of football will slowly decrease because of concussions.” Jeremy himself plays soccer at Millbrook, the sport with the third most concussions. So contact sports are not the only sports that incur concussions. However, they have a much higher chance and are feeling the repercussions the most.

 This is beginning to look like the future of sports, and in the long run,  we could see the popularity of football go away altogether. This is due to concussions and the effects that they have on players, as more and more information has come out people have become increasingly worried about the long-term effects. Things like CTE that have lifelong effects on people are resulting in the shift of support for sports like football. So in the future could we see these sports with high concussion rates become almost nonexistent?