Keep excitement over football in check

Oh boy, am I going to get guff over this one, not the least of which might come from my own family of sports fanatics.

But I can’t believe we’re making such a big deal about football.

Last week subscribers to the Los Angeles Times opened their papers one morning to find a front-page banner headline — that’s the kind that runs all the way across the top, reserved for rare occasions when the news is especially momentous — announcing the deal to return professional football to Los Angeles. Relegated to below-the-fold status were stories about President Obama’s State of the Union address and the new superintendent of Los Angeles United School District.

Yes, that’s right. Football is more newsworthy than the leader of the free world and the head of the nation’s second largest school district. And, just in case readers missed the football news, an even bigger headline ran the full width of the front page of the sports section.

On the same day, the Daily Pilot reported on a group of Costa Mesa High School parents advocating for features such as team rooms and more fan seating at the school’s new $8.5-million football stadium. They believe these additions will make it comparable to other new facilities.

I don’t begrudge these Costa Mesa parents for wanting the best for their kids. I would probably do the same if I had a son in the program. Nor can I rightly criticize news organizations for prominently featuring stories that readers care about.

Still, the outsized importance and influence that football wields in our culture continues to astonish me.

I know, I know. Football is a national treasure. It brings joy to millions of fans, and an escape from the troubles of the world. It is the All-American pastime, and we should celebrate it.

But there are other things that football is not.

First, it’s important to recognize that football is not a boon to local economies, as some professional owners and sports promoters would have us believe. This is a topic that has been studied again and again by academics and economists, and their findings are quite clear.

Yes, football teams and stadiums generate economic activity in the immediate areas surrounding the venues. They raise revenue, pay taxes and create jobs. But the money that is spent on football is, for the most part, cash that would have been spent elsewhere. Football — and other sports, it must be acknowledged — redirects economic activity, but it is pretty feeble as a net generator of it at the local level. What’s more, many of the jobs created are low paying.

Thank goodness, at least, that no public money will be used to build the proposed Inglewood stadium, future home of the Rams, which are moving from St. Louis, and possibly the Chargers, now in San Diego. Many municipalities have found themselves on the sucker’s end of stadium deals that have lined the pockets of wealthy team owners and developers at the expense of decent, hardworking citizens.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that Los Angeles and surrounding communities will get off scot-free. There will be costs associated with the new stadium — think increased traffic, wear and tear on roadways, a boosted police presence — as well as possible losses to some businesses that could actually find their customer base weakening on game days.

There’s another thing that football is not. It’s not safe.

I’m not giving away any secrets here. It is now common knowledge that football players have an alarmingly high incidence of concussions and chronic traumatic brain disease, problems that were covered up by the National Football League for years and are now coming to light. The Will Smith movie “Concussion” is bringing greater attention to the issue, and industry leaders like agent (and Daily Pilot columnist) Leigh Steinberg have called for reforms. This will hopefully lead to some changes in the way athletes are trained and taught to play the game.

But even mitigating factors will only do so much to reduce the risk of playing what is essentially a brutal sport.

According to the New York Times, despite the enduring popularity of both college and professional football, the number of boys playing high school football fell to about 1.08 million last year, down 2.4% from 2010. Pop Warner, the largest youth football organization, has experienced larger decreases, the newspaper reported. It has also been sued by a parent of a former player who committed suicide and was found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a brain disease linked to repeated head hits.

I’ll mention one more thing that football too often is not, and that is a model of ethical behavior. Professional and college sports programs have run interference for players over domestic abuse allegations and have faced multiple accusations of cheating. Coupled with the injury risk, such shady dealings must give pause to many parents these days about whether the benefits of having their kids play football are worth it in the long run.

All of which makes me wonder, again, why football commands such a uniquely hallowed status. It’s a game. It’s fun to watch. But it comes at a cost, and I can’t help but ponder how much longer we’ll see stadium deals as the biggest news of the day.

PATRICE APODACA is a former Newport-Mesa public school parent and former Los Angeles Times staff writer. She lives in Newport Beach.