“Don’t listen to me I am a f—–g idiot,” echoed none other than Joe Rogan in episode 1223 of his JRE podcast. But millions of people do listen to the UFC color commentator— precisely 19.5 million at least on YouTube. However, does that stop him from giving polarizing and factually incorrect information? Not at all. And guess what? There were many instances where he confidently announced misconstrued information. He had been accused of COVID misinformation, and even about meat production not causing climate change effects. Rogan said: “This is not a vaccine, this is essentially a gene therapy,” In one of his August 2021 JRE episodes.
And now he is back with another slightly wrong information pertaining to the NFL. We might see young NFL stars having a luxurious lifestyle, but that is temporary, and there are many gaps in the payment process of this huge industry. As per Front Office Sports, “The highest-paid NFL players made less than 15% of a team’s salary cap in 2011. That’s up to nearly 25% over the last few years.”
Even UFC color commentator and podcaster Joe Rogan reiterated a similar stance on the financial front recently. However, he might have been a little off mark from the accurate percentage of NFL players who face financial difficulties. While speaking to former American wide receiver Antonio Brown on JRE #2286, Rogan pointed out the harsh realities of being a professional soccer star.
He said, “That’s the hardest thing right for pro athletes, you go from being a kid to all of a sudden you are making millions of dollars and you’re young. And you’re wild, you are not thinking it’s going to go away.” He pointed out the peer pressure to live a certain lifestyle, which gets many athletes bankrupt. The JRE host then stated a statistic off the bat and said, “I think the number was something like 85% of NFL players go bankrupt with x number of years after they retire,” but he was not entirely accurate.
Yes, there have been reports of financial troubles by NFL stars, but the percentage he said was not correct. According to Sports Illustrated, “78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress”. However, Fortune.com stated that 16% of retired NFL players go bankrupt, not 85%. Nonetheless, the numbers are pretty high, even though Rogan might have slipped some misinformation to his audience.
But let’s get back to the NFL crisis because money is not the only problem. There is a bigger, more dangerous thing that grips the players after a while in the industry.
Bitter reality of CTE in NFL
The real battle for athletes in MMA and NFL does not happen under the spotlights but under the dim lights of hospitals and living rooms. Just ask athletes like Georges St-Pierre, Shane Carwin, and Stipe Miocic and you will know the dreadfulness of such a career path! Taking regular impacts to the head and having concussions is a part of the job for them, which is detrimental to health in the long run.
So when former NFL star Antonio Brown, who many fans believe has CTE, came on the JRE podcast, the discussion had to move to a 2006 film that conveyed CTE to the mainstream audience and started a discourse about it.“The reality of head trauma is something that we’re, like, as a society, we’re just embracing over the last 10-20 years. Like it wasn’t for that concussion movie, I think that opened up a lot of people’s eyes. That Will Smith movie and the story of that doctor. Of him finding how many people have, like, significant brain trauma from football,” Rogan articulated on episode #2286 of the JRE podcast.
The ‘Will Smith’ movie Rogan was speaking about was regarding the 2015 film, titled Concussion. The film shows the story of Dr. Bennet Omalu, who, along with his team, discovered the prevalence of CTE in former football players. ‘AB’, however, has vehemently denied the claim that he has CTE, saying that this cannot be diagnosed when someone is alive. However, he still tries to raise awareness about it as much as possible.
What do you think about the concerning aspects of the NFL? Did you know what went behind the scenes? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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