Sports writer George Dohrmann discusses the NFL’s efforts to replenish its viewership and player pipeline with a campaign targeting children, which he compares to the efforts of the tobacco industry.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Let’s talk football for a few minutes. If you are like millions of other Americans, then football is a part of your weekend. Whether you’re catching a game or jumping on the computer to check on your fantasy team, you are the reason football remains the most watched sport in the country and the most profitable sports enterprise in the world. So you might not have noticed that the sport is actually facing some stress. There’s more attention to the health effects than ever before. The number of kids participating is dropping, and this season ratings have actually dropped.

But the NFL is not taking this lying down. The league is fighting back with a massive effort to replenish its fan base by focusing on drawing kids into the game and reassuring their parents it is safe. But according to our next guest, they’re doing that by sometimes using questionable tactics, including fuzzy facts. Our guest is Pulitzer Prize-winning sportswriter George Dohrmann. He wrote a lengthy piece about this for Huffington Post. It’s called “Hooked For Life.” And he’s going to tell us more about it. Joining us from Jefferson Public Radio in Ashland, Ore. George, thanks so much for joining us.

GEORGE DOHRMANN: Thank you for having me.

MARTIN: So just to set the stage here, you know – I talked a little bit about this in the introduction. What place does football hold in America compared to other forms of entertainment, other sports?

DOHRMANN: It just doesn’t compare. It is the most popular sport by, you know, a measure of 10. With the exception of when the Cubs are in the World Series, usually a throwaway NFL game will outdraw a World Series game. It just has such penetration. It is such a part of the American fabric. We call baseball America’s pastime, and it’s just not true. Football is America’s pastime.

MARTIN: And yet you say in your piece – and it’s been reported in a number of places – that Americans are starting to get a little skeptical about the sport, that the number of young people participating is actually on the decline, a number of high-profile public figures – I’m thinking Terry Bradshaw, for example, of the great, you know, Pittsburgh Steelers has said that he wouldn’t let his children play. Do you think that that is what is behind the fact that people are turning away from the sport even a little bit?

DOHRMANN: Yeah. It’s playing a big role. I mean, the participation in football is down, you know, 17, 20 percent over the last five years. These are the young kids that are playing. And even more important – young people 18 to 34 are not watching football as they used to. These are two bright, red flags that the NFL has known about for a few years now and then has started reacting to.

MARTIN: So what is the NFL doing in response?

DOHRMANN: Oh, my. So, you know, in the article, we compare it to, you know, the – sort of the tactics by Big Tobacco. What the NFL is doing is they’re doing everything. And what they’re doing is they are going after your kids. I mean, they’ve even talked publicly – executives there talked about trying to get to kids and really that, you know, 6 to 12 year olds – they have put together so many initiatives to try to get kids. They created a fantasy football league game which was essentially gambling for kids. They created all these digital properties, including a virtual world to get after kids. And they’ve infiltrated schools. They’ve put together sponsored education materials that are just a joke, and they’re getting those into classrooms.

MARTIN: What about that, though? I mean, American sports have always been marketed to kids – I mean, like baseball cards. So why is that so terrible?

DOHRMANN: You know, on the face of it, you know, marketing your product – and if you think of football as just a product, you know, that’s OK. That’s what corporations do. But I think most people would say, number one, this is not something that professional sports enterprise has ever done before. We have not seen things like the NFL is doing like that fantasy game that I talked about where, you know, there were cash prizes for kids if they picked the right team and it scored the most points each week. That’s not something that we’ve ever seen before from the NBA or Major League Baseball…

MARTIN: Wait a minute – so they actually – tell me about this game – that they actually created a kid’s version of fantasy football and that they actually gave kids cash?

DOHRMANN: Yes. It was a fantasy game marketed directly to kids between 6 and 12. They went on, and they would pick a team each week just like I do in my fantasy team, just like so many millions of Americans do. And if they happen to pick the best team that week, if they picked the right quarterback and it scored the most points and down the line with each position, they could win an X-Box. They could win a thousand dollars. If they were the best kid over the course of a season to do that, they could win $10,000. They could win tickets to a game. I don’t know how this isn’t gambling. And I think they drew a lot of criticism for this. And just recently changed the rules, but it went on for years and years where they were incentivizing football.

MARTIN: You also make the point that they’re focusing on parents, like these kind of clinics for parents to educate them about the steps that they’re taking to make the game safer. What’s so terrible about that?

DOHRMANN: So, you know, what they do is they have these clinics. They’re called mom’s clinics or they’re called family football clinics, and they bring people in to talk about the game. And what they really do is they bring them in to talk about how football is safer. And they tout a program called Heads Up Football that they claim is making football safer.

The data does not suggest that at all. It is not making the game safer at least in terms of head trauma. They say things at these clinics like you’re as likely to get a concussion riding a bike as you are playing football if you’re a kid. Well, that’s true if you include girls and only up until age 10. If you exclude girls, it’s football. After the age of 10 overall, it’s football.

So they do these little things where they sort of muddy the waters when it comes to what we know about football and about head trauma, and then they make an emotional play to moms. They bring in famous football moms, you know, whose husband played in the NFL, and they talk about all that football did for their family. They make an emotional sort of plea to these moms. And so it just feels like, you know, to me – and when I witnessed it, it feels a little bit dirty.

MARTIN: Well, because you are a good reporter, you presumably approached the NFL about your findings. What did they say?

DOHRMANN: You know, they didn’t really say much. They gave us a couple of statements that just said, you know, essentially we’re concerned about the health and safety of people, and, you know, we’re a responsible organization, I guess. I mean, that’s not their exact words, but that’s essentially what they conveyed, so they didn’t say much.

MARTIN: What should they be doing in your view? As you’ve pointed out, this is a multibillion dollar industry. They have an enormous foothold on American culture and millions of people legitimately love it, and they want to participate. So what should they do?

DOHRMANN: Well, I think they’re doing one thing that I – in the story I sort of applaud them for which is they’re emphasizing flag football more. They’re growing flag football nationally, incentivizing it by giving footballs and really reduced gear to recreation departments. So that’s a good thing because we know the reality is is that the NFL at some point is going to have to acknowledge that this game is not safe for young kids, and it is not a good idea for 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 year olds to be playing that kind of a contact sport. High school on that may be a different argument, but at some point here, the NFL is going to have to admit that, you know, maybe we shouldn’t be in the youth football business, and maybe we should encourage flag and non-contact football over, you know, collisions amongst 6 and 8 year olds.

MARTIN: That’s George Dohrmann. He’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. He focuses on sports. His latest article “Hooked For Life” is on the Huffington Post’s Highline website now. He was kind enough to join us from Jefferson Public Radio in Ashland, Ore. George Dohrmann, thanks so much for speaking with us.

DOHRMANN: Thank you.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

NPR’s Scott Simon talks with Howard Bryant of ESPN.com and ESPN the magazine about the return of two of America’s great football teams and baseball’s new collective bargaining agreement.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Time now for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SIMON: And did you hear? B.J. Leiderman writes our theme music. LeBron James played his friend and former teammate Dwyane Wade last night, and he walked in wearing a Cubs jersey. Here’s a man who lives by his word. Howard Bryant of ESPN joins us now. Howard, thanks so much for being with us.

HOWARD BRYANT: Good morning, Scott.

SIMON: How did this…

BRYANT: I know that made you really happy to say that about LeBron wearing that jersey (laughter).

SIMON: Yeah, yeah. Look, if he wants to try – you know, wants to try and play in the offseason, I’m willing, too – his offseason. OK. Why was he wearing the jersey? He really did make good on a promise, didn’t he?

BRYANT: Yes, he did. Yes, he did. And, of course, the Cubs winning and beating Cleveland, as well – I think that a – quite a year for both cities, for Cleveland, especially, having won being down 3-1 earlier. So it was a bit of payback for the city, but I don’t think it was a bet LeBron had a problem paying for because it was quite a pretty good season for the Indians, as well.

SIMON: Yeah. Back to baseball in a minute, but I want to ask about football at this part of the season. The Dallas Cowboys and the Oakland Raiders are two of the signature franchises of the NFL – America’s team and, if you please, America’s bad boys. Neither have won a Super Bowl in years, but the Cowboys are 11-and-1 this season, including 11 victories in a row. The Raiders are 9-and-2. What’s brought them back?

BRYANT: Yeah. I love it actually. I think it’s great. Well, one – it’s a quarterback league. You’ve got the young kid – the rookie Dak Prescott – playing for Dallas, and Ezekiel Elliott, the running back from Ohio State, who – these two are the – two of the greatest rookies that we’ve ever seen, in terms of, obviously, first single season. And I think that that has brought this back. You’ve got Derek Carr over in Oakland. It’s a quarterback league, so when you’ve got someone at the front there, good things can happen.

I think this is one of the things that drives me crazy about the NFL. There is a fine line, as I always say, between parity and mediocrity, and the NFL can be mediocre. Everybody’s 8-and-8, and there are really no signature teams outside of the Patriots and maybe the Packers when they’re good and a couple of others.

But if you’re of a certain age, watching the history of the NFL, the Dallas Cowboys mean something. The Oakland Raiders mean something. The Oakland Raiders haven’t had a winning season since 2002. The Dallas Cowboys haven’t been to the Super Bowl since they won it back in 1995. So you’re looking at a generation. You’re looking at 20 years of the signature team not even being on the stage. They haven’t even been to the Super Bowl.

So this is good news. This is really something, and I think it’s fun. I think it’s something that – you need games to circle. You need bad guys. You need villains. You need great teams. And I think that’s one of the reasons that the NFL actually has a great chance to sort of recover from low ratings this year.

SIMON: It’s one of the fundamental features of drama, right? You’ve got to have good guys and bad guys.

BRYANT: Absolutely. Who cares if every team has the same record?

SIMON: Yeah. Back to baseball – new collective bargaining agreement – what do you notice in this one?

BRYANT: Well, I think the biggest thing obviously was billionaires versus millionaires, as always. The minimum salary went up to $535,000 a year for the (laughter) – for the players. But I think the big deal here is the players and the owners are going to fight over money, and you’ve got luxury tax now, obviously. The players do not want a salary cap, but it seems like they’re going to have one because teams can’t spend over a certain amount. But the biggest deal is that that idiotic rule from Bud Selig back in 2002 – no longer will the All-Star Game decide who gets home field.

SIMON: Yeah.

BRYANT: Finally, we have a meritocracy. Best team gets home field. It’s about time.

SIMON: Yeah. Excellent idea. Howard Bryant of ESPN, thanks very much for being with us, my friend.

BRYANT: Thank you.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

Retired baseball star Derek Jeter says he’s addicted to the game of golf, and played the other day with Tiger Woods. Jeter says it is “probably the most frustrating thing” he’s ever done.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning. I’m Steve Inskeep. Derek Jeter retired from the New York Yankees but hasn’t given up sports. The one-time baseball star took up golf. He says he’s addicted to the game and played the other day with Tiger Woods. But as golfers know, it’s a tricky game. Jeter says it’s probably the most frustrating thing he’s ever done. The Yankee shortstop, who once hit Randy Johnson’s 95-mph fastballs, is now struggling to hit a ball that doesn’t even move. You’re listening to MORNING EDITION.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

The crash of the plane killed a Brazilian soccer team living a Cinderella story. The team rose from relative obscurity and was scheduled to play in one of the region’s most prestigious tournaments.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Brazil is in mourning after the crash of a charter plane carrying a Brazilian soccer team. The team was headed to the biggest game in its history when the plane crashed in the Colombian Andes. More than 70 people were killed. Six survived. The crash brought to a violent end the Cinderella story of a team that rose from relative obscurity to qualify for one of the region’s most prestigious tournaments. Catherine Osborn reports.

CATHERINE OSBORN, BYLINE: Within hours of the crash, a video of the Chapecoense soccer team taken just a few days ago began circulating online.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

UNIDENTIFIED PLAYERS: (Singing in foreign language).

OSBORN: Its players jubilantly singing in the locker room after defeating the powerhouse Argentinian team, San Lorenzo, in the semi-final of the Copa Sudamericana tournament. Even the fact that Pope Francis supports the Argentinian opponents couldn’t stop Chapecoense’s winning streak. And they had risen fast from a tiny city in the countryside of southern Brazil.

BERNARDO GENTILE: (Foreign language spoken).

OSBORN: Sports journalist Bernardo Gentile from the news site OUL says a few years ago, Chapecoense was obscure, in near financial ruin. Then new management got them organized and focused on hiring players that weren’t necessarily superstars but would work well together.

GENTILE: (Foreign language spoken).

OSBORN: He says this is rare in Brazilian football, which recently has become better known for corruption. The rejuvenated team drew fans from around the city of Chapeco. Juliana dal Piva was among them.

JULIANA DAL PIVA: We always have sort of 10,000 to 15,000 people every week in the same year. And this is not very common in the other teams. When the team’s not playing well, the fans don’t go. We always go.

OSBORN: And this year the team’s focus, an aggressive attack, got it to its first final match in an international tournament scheduled for tomorrow night in Medellin, Colombia.

DAL PIVA: We were many times playing against soccer teams that were more traditional, with more money, with better infrastructures. It was like a dream.

OSBORN: Brazilians nationwide have been charmed by the Chapecoense story, one of the biggest surprises in Brazilian sports in recent years. But the surprise turned dark last night when a charter plane carrying the team crashed in the Colombian mountains. Also on board were 21 sports journalists.

DAL PIVA: We not only lost the dream. We lost our people.

OSBORN: Shock spread across Brazil. The government declared three days of national mourning. And soccer matches have been cancelled for a week. The tragedy comes at what has been an especially difficult year in Brazil, which impeached its president in August and is going through its worst recession on record.

GENTILE: (Foreign language spoken).

OSBORN: “Soccer,” says Gentile, “is one of the few things Brazilians can count on to bring people together in polarized times. Many had shelved political differences in recent weeks to root for Chapecoense. “The only thing to do now,” he says, “is mourn together for a team that inspired a nation.” For NPR News, I’m Catherine Osborn in Rio de Janeiro.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

NPR’s Scott Simon talks to Howard Bryant of ESPN about major figures in Cuban sports and the potential expiration of Major League Baseball’s collective bargaining agreement.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

And now it’s time for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SIMON: Among the many changes that Fidel Castro imposed on his country after his 1959 revolution was a ban on professional sports. That ban lasted until 2013, and it made it difficult for the country’s best athletes to compete professionally abroad. Many made dangerous escapes to try to do that. Howard Bryant of espn.com and ESPN The Magazine joins us.

Howard, thanks so much for being with us.

HOWARD BRYANT, BYLINE: Good morning, Scott.

SIMON: And sports is very popular in Cuba. It’s an important part of the Cuban nation. I want to bring up the name Teofilo Stevenson, one of the great boxers of all time, I think – one of the great Cuban athletes, certainly. He won three consecutive Olympic gold medals for Cuba, the first in 1972. I always thought he was the one boxer of his time, until Joe Frazier, who might’ve defeated Muhammad Ali. But we’ll never know.

BRYANT: Yes. And a lot of people did. It’s the fight that never took place. And I think one of the things about the death of Fidel Castro is it is so generational. And if you are of a certain age, that little island 90 miles away from where I am right now in Key West was a gigantic figure in your life because of the raging Cold War battle.

And the Olympics made so much headway for us. They made – Olympics were everything. And Stevenson was one of the guys that you knew – if you were watching the Americans fight at the heavyweight level, that if they had to face Stevenson, they were going to lose. Nobody beat him in Olympic competition in three Olympics.

And he’s another one of those athletes that you always wondered what could’ve been. And the tension between these two countries – it’s really difficult to understand if you weren’t really a child of the Cold War how big sports played in it.

SIMON: Yeah. And I have to wonder how many great Cuban baseball players never got their chance to play in the United States because jumping off the Cuban national team or trying to figure out passage to the U.S. or Mexico or the Dominican Republic or someplace where a professional athlete could simply try and play at the highest level to which he or she was entitled to play – that was a very dangerous proposition.

BRYANT: Well, no question. And also, let’s not forget about the history – as you well know – the history of baseball in Cuba in general. The Brooklyn Dodgers – Jackie Robinson in 1947, 1948 – they trained in Cuba. And the relationship between that sport and that island is so powerful. We always think about, once again, the great Dominican players, the great Puerto Rican players, the Venezuelan players.

And the Cuban players are some of the ones that we remember most because of the road that they’ve had to take to get to the major leagues. Let’s not forget Orlando Hernandez, the great El Duque, in 1998, defecting and finally succeeding in defecting…

SIMON: Yeah.

BRYANT: …After being a national hero in Cuba – and then was essentially banned from playing by Fidel Castro because he would not turn on some of the players who had defected. He would not rat on his friends.

SIMON: Yeah.

BRYANT: And then what happened? He was stripped of all of his glory and then finally came to the New York Yankees and was an indispensable member of that team. Luis Tiant, Boston Red Sox and Aroldis Chapman with the Cubs – there’s just so many figures. Baseball, Cuba – it’s – and 1997, obviously, as well, when the Orioles went over as well. It’s just such an incredible, incredible history.

SIMON: Howard Bryant from ESPN, thanks very much for being with us.

BRYANT: Thank you.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

There’s no day bigger than the Saturday after Thanksgiving for college football rivalries. Even fans abroad make a point of tuning in. NPR’s Ari Shapiro talks with a Michigan fan in London and an Ohio State fan in the Netherlands about their matchup.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

For college football fans, there is an order to Thanksgiving weekend. Family on Thursday, leftovers Friday, game day Saturday. Tomorrow is the biggest day for college football rivalries. For super fans who live overseas it can be a little more complicated to bring your blood up to a full boil for game day. We’ve called up a couple of rivals who have never met, both of them ex-pats struggling with this challenge. In London, Eric Kumbier is a University of Michigan fan. Hi there.

ERIC KUMBIER: Hello.

SHAPIRO: And in the Netherlands, Samik Parsa (ph) is an Ohio State fan. Hello to you.

SAMIK PARSA: Hey, Ari.

SHAPIRO: So how are you each planning on watching the game tomorrow? Eric, you first.

KUMBIER: Well, I teach in Beirut. But my college roommate, I’m meeting him up in London because he teaches in Lithuania. And we’re watching it at a sports bar in London.

SHAPIRO: And Samik?

PARSA: Wow, that’s perfect. We’re actually – I’m having a few friends over here at my place here in Holland. And we’re going to gather, you know, as many Buckeye fans as we can to keep the emotion high.

SHAPIRO: No Michigan fans allowed?

PARSA: Well, you know, it’s TBD. So, like, I don’t have – I didn’t invite any, but if they happen to show up…

SHAPIRO: I mean, God forbid you would be friends with somebody like that.

PARSA: (Laughter).

SHAPIRO: Are you both planning on running the streets of these European cities with, like, your faces painted and your bare chests with the letter of your school on them?

KUMBIER: I did that in my university days. I’ve got my Michigan gear, my Michigan apparel. So that’ll have to be good enough for now. I don’t have the face paint with me right now.

SHAPIRO: Samik?

PARSA: Same here. I don’t know that Holland’s ready for that yet.

SHAPIRO: (Laughter).

PARSA: Maybe if it was closer to Carnival I could – I might be able to get away with it but, yeah, probably not this weekend.

SHAPIRO: Can you explain why these two particular teams are each other’s rivals? I mean, why not like Pennsylvania or Indiana or something?

KUMBIER: It’s a historic rivalry. I think it dates back past football. A lot of it is we’re upset with them when they got Toledo. There was a dispute between the state line.

SHAPIRO: You mean like an actual war, like, over Toledo, Ohio, like, there was fighting among the states?

KUMBIER: Sounds absurd today, but it was actually a big deal back in the 1800s. But then the college football rivarly got going and it really picked up when both Schembechler and Woody Hayes coached against each other. Bo was Woody’s protege. He went on to coach at Michigan. They coached against each other for 10 years and that was kind of the most intense stuff. Well, well before I was born but the hatred kind of carries over from one generation to another.

SHAPIRO: You know, it’s funny you two obviously have this innate hatred for one another. And yet, it seems that you understand each other better than any of the people in the country around you understand either of you.

KUMBIER: It’s hardwired into you. So, I mean, Michigan-Ohio State on this side of the pond, same with the European football rivalries on the other side. So a little bit of that is hardwired into us wherever we come. But I think Michigan-Ohio State kind of takes it up a couple notches.

PARSA: To me it’s the rivalry in all of sport. You could take Red Sox-Yankees, Celtics-Lakers. I don’t know. I can’t think of a bigger rivalry in all of sport.

KUMBIER: There isn’t one.

SHAPIRO: So at least you agree on that.

PARSA: We do. We do.

SHAPIRO: Samik Parsa on the line with us from the Netherlands and Eric Kumbier joining us via Skype from the U.K. Good luck to you both.

KUMBIER: All right, thank you very much.

PARSA: Thanks, Ari.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

For a lot of families, one of the rituals of Thanksgiving is playing a little backyard football. That may be why football injuries at the emergency room spike on Thanksgiving every year. FiveThirtyEight reporter Ben Casselman dug into the numbers.

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

You probably already know some of the big Thanksgiving safety tips – defrost your bird in the fridge, not on the counter. No frozen turkeys in the deep fryer. Don’t bring up politics around uncle Mike. Well, here’s one more way a lot of people hurt themselves on Thanksgiving – playing football. Ben Casselman learned that lesson the hard way. A few years ago, he was home for the holiday with his family and they assembled in the backyard for a friendly scrimmage.

BEN CASSELMAN: My brother and I are always on opposite teams. And somehow between the two of us the touch football blends into full contact pretty quickly.

SHAPIRO: So maybe it’s not that surprising that one of those games left Ben Casselman with a broken finger.

CASSELMAN: So off I went to the emergency room, where I found a whole collection of other men in their kind of 30s and early 40s, a few years past all of our athletic prime with knee injuries and ankle injuries and finger injuries and generally a lot of people who had maybe overexerted themselves on the backyard gridiron.

SHAPIRO: These days, Ben Casselman is a reporter and editor for the data journalism site fivethirtyeight.com, so he decided to dig into the numbers. The Consumer Product Safety Commission collects statistics on emergency room visits.

CASSELMAN: And it turns out that Thanksgiving is far and away the day which dominates football injuries. There were around a thousand Americans a year who get hurt playing football on Thanksgiving.

SHAPIRO: One-thousand broken, strained and sprained fingers, shoulders, ankles and knees. We should say Casselman only looked at adults age 25 and older, no high school or college games.

CASSELMAN: And this, of course, is just the people who end up in the ER. This isn’t counting all of the – the ankle sprains and whatever else that, you know, you just have a beer and try to forget about.

SHAPIRO: Casselman suspects that most of the victims are, like him, holiday weekend-warrior types.

CASSELMAN: We haven’t been on the football field in a few years. And we go out there and we’re convinced we can still do what we did in our 20s. And it turns out that that’s not as true as it used to be.

SHAPIRO: If you’re wondering how not to become one of those backyard football casualties, we have some tips. Casselman got this advice from a doctor at the hospital where his broken finger was treated.

CASSELMAN: Well, so the big thing he recommended, of course, is that you should get athletic activity throughout the year. But it’s a little too late for that now. So if you’re not an athlete but you’re going to play football anyway, he recommended stretching; he recommended knowing your limits; and he recommended that football first, alcohol second, not the other way around.

SHAPIRO: Thanksgiving words of wisdom from Ben Casselman of FiveThirtyEight.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.