Leading With the Head: How NBC’s Football Night America Framed Football’s Concussion Crisis

• In Event: Sports Journalists and Sports Journalism: Producers and Content

Abstract

The 2013 National Football League season opened with the sport’s concussion crisis high on the media agenda. The league had just settled a lawsuit with former players, changed on-field rules and pressured a broadcast partner to withdraw about the league’s actions related to brain damage suffered by former players. Yet most media outlets that focus on football also have financial arrangements with the NFL based on broadcast rights, shaping perceptions of the sport. This qualitative content analysis of NBC’s Football Night in America, primarily a highlight show, found that the broadcast framed head injuries episodically and largely ignored the issue. The broadcasts rarely highlighted repeated concussions in individual players, although emphasized when specific players repeatedly broke the rules. They also treated rule changes negatively, focusing on the ways they damaged the game. These framing practices protect the NFL’s reputation and cultural position, defining the parameters of discourse about football.

Authors

• Michael L Mirer, University of Wisconsin

• Mark Mederson, U of Wisconsin-Madison