Raising the Boom: Constitutive Rules and Traumatic Brain Injuries in the NFL through Biomedicalization

• In Event: Science, Technology and Sport - II: Sporting Bodies and Technologies

Abstract

This paper examines, via a biomedicalization framework, the National Football League’s (NFL) 2018 creation of a rule to mitigate the bioeconomic threat of novel biomedical knowledge of traumatic brain injuries (TBIs). Following widespread backlash over a perceived failure of the NFL to address TBIs, the NFL introduced Rule 12 Section 2 Article 8, banning the initiation of contact with the helmet. First, I outline the NFL and its new rule through a biomedicalization framework, with a focus of the NFL as a bioeconomy. Then I examine the inconsistent enforcement of the rule through penalties and fines. This paper concludes that the NFL created this rule to craft a rhetorical argument of increasing player safety to placate its critics without actually changing the game.

Author

• Declan James Abernethy, Georgia Institute of Technology