There’s no doubt that as far as American sports leagues are concerned, the NFL is king, but former Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback and Fox analyst Troy Aikman believes this could change over the coming decades.
Aikman believes a combination of factors--including the expansion of weekly TV schedules to include games on Thursdays and Saturdays, and the rise of concern over concussions--could do the unthinkable: knock the NFL off of its perch on top of the mountain of American sports.
“If I [had a son], I wouldn’t tell him he couldn’t play football. If he wanted to, I would say ‘OK, great,’” Aikman said recently, per the Los Angeles Times. “But I don’t know if I would be encouraging him to play. Whereas, with the other sports, you want your kids to be active and doing those types of things.”
Of course, the shift won’t be overnight if it happens at all and, as of now, football remains, by quite a margin, the greatest cash cow in American sports.
“I believe, and this is my opinion, that at some point football is not going to be the No. 1 sport,” Aikman said. “You talk about the ebbs and flows of what’s popular and what’s not. At some point, the TV ratings are not going to be there.
“I can’t justify that because the numbers say otherwise, but I guess time will tell.”
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