Institutions are the “rules of the game” that influence choices

ECONOMIC PRINCIPLE: People respond to incentives in predictable ways.

THESIS: With the effects of concussions being all negative, we can see that by playing contact sports it is a harm to the athlete physically, mentally and can cause death.

SYNTHESIS PARAGRAPH: What are the effects of concussions in sports?  Through my research over the past couple of months I have found out that concussions are nothing to play with and can be very harmful to someone's health.  Then the question is why do athletes play these sports?  With the economic principle that people respond to incentives  in predictable ways is true in the fact that many of the pro athletes are getting concussions and withstand them because they are getting paid so much money.  When these athletes get that many concussions playing professional sports they developed a terrible disease called CTE.  Boston University states that “Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in athletes with a history of repetitive brain trauma, including symptomatic concussions as well as asymptomatic sub concussive hits to the head” (Boston University).  This disease is starting to make a huge impact in the community of the NFL and other contact sport corporations.  Even know the players know that there is a huge possibility of getting CTE and know that the disease can cause dementia and eventually death they continue to play contact sports like football professionally because it plays them an incentive, really good money.  A recent study shows that Riddel one of the major companies that makes NFL helmet was found that it did not test its helmets for concussions hits. Udall and Rockefeller state “during the hearing, it was revealed that sports equipment manufacturers have repeatedly made claims that their equipment "prevents concussions" or "reduce the risk of concussions" without scientific evidence to back those claims.” (U.S. Congress Documents) If NFL players are getting the information that they are completely unsafe when playing football and are likely to get concussions then it can only be the incentive of money that persuades players to play a unsafe sport like football.  Overall the effects of concussion are very negative and therefore contact sports should not be played or should be changed in order to help the athlete and not negatively impact the athlete.