On my ride down to work earlier this week, I lucked out and caught John Madden’s daily radio segment on KCBS. He provided color around the ongoing problem of concussions in football and the steps being taken to prevent them. For an excellent analysis of the issue, check out this piece in the WSJ which describes how current football helmets succeed in preventing catastrophic injuries (e.g., skull fractures or death) per their original intent, but allow for and encourage the type of play that leads to concussions and smaller-scale brain trauma. Over time, these smaller-scale traumas add up to debilitating conditions, as are being seen more and more among NFL retirees.
Well, it’s Thanksgiving, and I figured now was the perfect time to bring up the Madden interview. After all, Thanksgiving is synonymous with football, time off for video games, and food: all of which fall squarely into Madden’s wheel house. That being said, the Wikipedia article on “turducken” suggests Madden’s unholy love of the avian triple threat is coming to an end…will Thanksgiving ever be the same?
I'm sooooo thankful for John Madden
Back to head injuries. Madden’s interview and the WSJ article referred to league officiating changes that could help prevent concussions. But these changes only go so far in a sport that’s physical and contact-driven by nature. As Big John says, “there is a lot of head-to-head contact that you can’t do anything about. It’s called the running game.”
The only other things we can change then are the helmets. Maybe we could take them away, such that players will revert to a safer style of play that diminishes head contact?
“Then it wouldn’t be football. Then it’d be rugby,” Madden adroitly points out.
Our best course of action then would have to be technological improvements to the classic Riddell plastic helmet. In that regard, I’ve come across two types of innovations:
- HITS System: Earlier this year I alluded to a new helmet co-developed by Simbex and Riddell which tracks the impact of hits sustained by football players (mainly because I barbarically wanted to see that data transmitted to fans in-game after a big hit). The University of Minnesota and a few other programs have rolled out the HITS System and are happy with the results so far. The only issue, however, is that these systems don’t do anything to prevent concussions in the first place – they just help diagnose probable ones.
- A better helmet: Machine Design previewed the “Gladiator” two years ago – a football helmet developed using better design principles to distribute forces upon contact, while weighing less and preventing player fatigue (known to lead to sloppy, dangerous tackles). What about better materials? A recent patent appears to cover the use of nanomaterials in an impact-absorbing helmet. There is also a good chance that innovations in other fields will trickle onto the football field. NASA helped pioneer titanium facemasks. And the Army’s upcoming enhanced combat helmet, or protective headgear pioneered at MIT’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology, could transition from the military and to the NFL just like the current helmet did.
Is this a market prime for new competitors? This history of the football helmet by ESPN’s Uni Watch dissects just how controversial the switch from leather to plastic was, as well as some of the failed designs vying to protect gridiron warriors over time. The general tendency to resist any new technology that could significantly change the game, in addition to notoriously fashion chic pro football players and the strength of embedded competition like Riddell (part of a protective gear conglomerate owned by Fenway Partners that includes Easton and Bell brands and totals >$550M per year in sales), mean it will be a difficult market for any new and unknown player to tackle.
But the market size is fairly good and provides a jumping off point to other rich markets in protective sporting gear. There are about 250K organized contact football players in the USA; assuming each one buys a new helmet each year and is willing to pay $200, you have a total addressable market of $50M. If you assume pads have a similar average selling price, you’re up to $100M. This triangulates well with Riddell’s sales of $102M – given they basically own the market for protective equipment in football without much exposure to other markets. Assuming a startup can then go on to penetrate other markets for protective sports gear (e.g., hockey, baseball, biking, snowboarding and skateboarding), one could easily get to a $1B addressable market globally.
In terms of getting traction in a very competitive market, Under Armour serves as an excellent case study. They built their brand as tough, young and fashionable, and went to market with a unique product that Nike and adidas were not ready to offer. By the time Nike and adidas launched competing product lines, Under Armour established itself as a cool brand that was around to stay. Could a new football helmet manufacturer come out with something blisteringly cool looking – that also happens to be safer than the competition – and build up a strong enough brand to keep their customers after Riddell catches up on the technology front? My guess is that the Gladiator is not the right answer to that question, but perhaps something else will be.
That’s all I got…Happy Turducken Day, everyone!
