Is it immoral to watch the Super Bowl?

There is mounting evidence and awareness that playing football is bad for your brain. Now, to dramatize the statistics and grim anecdotes about ex-players succumbing to dementia and early deaths, we have Concussion —a major Hollywood movie starring Will Smith. But is this having any effect on our country’s passion for this fascinating, violent sport?

A survey released in the run-up to Sunday’s Super Bowl suggests yes — and no. More Americans than ever say they would not let their sons play football. Yet football remains our favorite spectator sport. So at the same time that more and more of us would not let our own sons play, we apparently have no qualms about watching other people’s sons risk brain damage to entertain us.

The new Public Religion Research Institute survey shows that in just one year, there has been a 9 percentage point rise in the number of people who would not let their own kids don the helmet and shoulder pads. When PRRI polled Americans on this question last year, 22% said they’d keep Johnny off the gridiron; now the percentage is 31%.

This bodes ill for football’s viability as a venue for boys and young men to chase athletic glory and develop character, teamwork skills and the like — benefits long touted to justify football’s popularity despite the fact that you tend to get hurt playing it.

As a spectator experience, however, football stands taller than ever over American culture. The TV ratings of last year’s Super Bowl between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots set a record — not just for a football game but for any TV program of any type. This is not only a Super Bowl phenomenon, the product of viewing parties, halftime spectacles and the best that the advertising industry has to offer. As USA TODAY reported in November, the dozen mostwatched “shows” last fall were regular-season NFL games.

When it comes to football, “show” is definitely the right word. Of those surveyed by PRRI, a skimpy 12% report having played football in their youth, in contrast with the 27% who played baseball or softball.

Juxtapose the sport’s massive spectator popularity with our growing knowledge of its dangers, and with the reality that most of the men playing in the NFL are black and/or from disadvantaged backgrounds, and you end up with a creepy feeling.

At least I do, which is why I stopped watching the NFL three years ago and why, despite relapsing during last year’s playoffs, I have resumed my football abstinence. I suspect qualms like mine will start infiltrating more fans’ heads. As the sports-and-politics columnist Dave Zirin aptly puts it, the day is likely coming when “no one will play this game if they don’t have to. … The pool of players will become smaller and less economically affluent in the years to come. We will then have to reckon with just what the hell it is we are watching every Sunday.”

Or, in the case of more and more of us, what we used to watch on Sunday.