and more NFL violence-Adrian Peterson

[Nemesis44uk]

"But even in that I have to deal with the Sevyon Varlamov kidnapping and hitting of his girlfriend."

Sorry, I couldn't let this go....kidnapping is the technical term Denver Police used, but it can be as weak as impeding someone else, if they wanted to leave. Ie. standing in between that person and the door, preventing them leaving. The physical evidence didn't match the gf's statement, ie - she had a bruise on her arm, but nothing matching the "stomping" she said he gave her. Also, Denver PD said they couldn't prosecute because the witness kept changing her story.

Add into that the fact that the gf wouldn't do any interviews unless she was paid but the most damning evidence was that her best friend said that the gf admitted to her that it wasn't true, she was just shaking him down for enough money to return to Russia in style.

Believe me, if the evidence pointed to him doing that, I would've been very happy to run him out of town on a rail.

[Gravekeeper]

Youth football is cheaper, though. Because youth football has fewer costs than hockey. <snip>

Not to curtail you here, but I must object as a Young Boy Who Grew Up In Canadiastan. There is such a thing as street hockey. It requires sticks ( These cost about $15 ), a ball and a couple things to mark the goal posts. You do not need ice nor skates. You don't even need a court. Just a street. You can sub in rollerblades if you have more space if you like. But this is what I played growing up.

It is also what we played in PE class inside the gym. On the gym's basketball court. Or more specifically HALF of the gym's basketball court because that's all we needed space wise. If you really want to go all out you can get a street hockey net and some pads, which is actually cheaper than a basketball net.

Playing hockey doesn't require a rink anymore than playing basketball requires a regulation sized court with two nets or playing football requires a regulation sized field with yard markers and field goal posts. And when given the field you speak of, we play field hockey.

If you're a kid and you like a sport and want to play it, you'll find a way. If enough kids want to play it, the school will find a way. I grew up in a town with a population under 6000. My high school had a basketball team, rugby team, field hockey team, track and field team and a swim team. The town also had a rink and a youth hockey team. As well as senior teams and a curling team. Hell, my step dad is in his 60s and he still plays both hockey and curling on the town's local teams.

Again, this is a town with a population under 6000 and it has a indoor rink. The arena the rink is in also has a pool and a gym. Access to the rink, gym, pool, casual / amateur hockey, all fitness programs both in the pool and on land. Including all casual hockey and open skating sessions costs $394 a year ( Even comes with a free locker ) for ages 14-18. Also on offer: Basketball, Badminton, Yoga, Tai-Chi, cooking classes and, inexplicably, Spanish classes.

If you don't want the yearly rate, you can drop in on anything for $4. $2 on Wednesdays!

I had friends on the town's junior hockey team in high school. They were so not from affluent families. My best friend was a left winger. His parents had 3 kids, his mom was a social worker and his dad smoked pot as a career choice. Not exactly silver spoon. Both he and his younger brother played.

So its not strictly about costs. I'd say it has a lot more to do with culture and community support. Poor inner city kids in US cities play basketball, poor rural kids in the US play football, poor kids in Canada play hockey and basketball. All 3 aren't going to be able to play professionally without the support of their schools, towns and governments. Which, especially in the States, can vary wildly from region to region.

Except it's slightly LOWER than the general public, unless you exclude a good amount of the general public, and my point was that I felt that that exclusion did not make for a good comparison.

All NFL crime rates are lower than the general public as is expected from people living in a much wealthier tax bracket. Wealth = reduction in crime rates. This is the point I am trying to make but you keep moving back to total arrests. The NFL's arrest rate compared to the general public is around 13% of the rate of the general public if I recall right. But within that 13%, domestic violence is the #1 and accounts for over 50%. Which is proportionally much higher than the general public. Then when you compared them to the general public in the same tax bracket as them, it is also disproportionately much higher. You can do all that without having to use the direct per capita comparisons you're hung up on.

A point you still haven't addressed, because you keep changing the topic to other professional leagues.

No, I did not bring up the topic of other professional leagues. TheHuckster brought up professional sports leagues as a whole. I just looked up the numbers from a news article on the subject then took a wild guess at what might be one of the causes of the disparity between leagues. I straight up started the thought with "If I had to take a guess". ( I even tried to ease the discussion away from that because it felt like you were discussing it with me like I had proclaimed it a hard truth and was defending it to the death. Instead of just talking about to try and figure out an answer. )

You're the one that continued that aspect of the discussion by objecting to the methodology but cannot provide an alternative method of analysis. Causing me to go back and pull up more research data to respond to you. You were the first person to bring up total arrests and then you pinned that on me. Then when I brought up a counterpoint to your argument with the NHL, you rejected it by narrowing the goal posts back down to the general public.

You're also the one that made inaccurate statements on the size of the different leagues. Which again, I went and got the actual data for to reply to you. So don't shove this all on me when I'm the one actually doing the research legwork and analysis in the thread.

I feel like we're playing find the lady here. My view is that, because the best way to predict if someone will be an abusive spouse is if they were exposed to that as a child, and football players come from a broad amount of the populace, while people making over $75k are more likely to come from homes making over $75k, then comparing them only to people making over $75k is a bad idea.

But that is not what this was about or what I was saying. You are arguing that a possible REASON for the disparity makes the disparity flawed somehow.

I am only illustrating that the disparity exists. The REASONS for the disparity are a separate matter. We can discuss what the possible reasons are but the evidence says there is a disparity. The reasons aren't going to change that or invalidate it. Nor is any one reason going to be the entire answer. Especially when trying to argue based on socioeconomic background. There's no doubt its a factor but again, it doesn't pan out across all 4 major leagues as a consistent factor. There are clearly other factors at work such as the culture of each league and its individual teams which you pointed out.

In general people that are already rich don't seem to like playing really physical sports that could make them rich. Because they are already rich. Whereas, undeniably, part of reason some players in major leagues have for trying to get into the major leagues is because they can be paid extremely well for doing something they like to do. Furthermore the rich and upper class are a clear minority so even if they did seek to play in one of the big 4 leagues as often as those from poorer backgrounds, they would still only make up a small proportion of players.

So this entire argument you're making has a kink in it from the get go.

And for the record I used 75k+ because that's where the Department of Justice cuts off on their income vs crime rate stats for domestic violence. If we had stats for people making a a few million a year like NFL players I'm guessing the disparity would be even greater.

[Gravekeeper]

The NFL is the only league, out of the major 4, that doesn't have a farm system outside of the collegiate sports level.

Oh? Didn't know that. I will add that to my Fun Facts.

[the_std]

An interesting note on how this type of behavior is not specific to the States...

McGill Football Coach Resigns Over Player Suspension Due To Domestic Violence Arrest.

[Racket_Man]

Former NFL Exec says "Teams hid hundred and hundreds of abuse cases over the decades