Being the most popular and highest earning revenue sport in the United States, football is often a target of criticism and inquiry, both from the general public and from politicians. Most recently, the sport has come under pressure because of concerns that there are long-term health effects resulting from head injuries, specifically the impact of multiple concussions. In fact, a large group of retired professional players has sued the National Football League for allegedly withholding information about this long-term impact. The issue has spread to college football, and is also being discussed at the youth level. In early 2013, President Barack Obama made what many thought was an unprecedented public comment about the ongoing controversy. The President expressed concern about the issue and noted that if he had a son, he was not sure he would allow him to play football due to the uncertainty about long-term brain trauma from continuous hits to the head. As controversial as that statement may have seemed at the time, it still does not compare to a previous President’s involvement in addressing safety issues in football. In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt took very active and direct public action to address issues of safety in organized football. The sport was growing in popularity, but was highly controversial due to the uncontrolled violence and serious injuries. Many influential people were calling for football to be banned altogether. President Roosevelt’s support for football and strong influence when dealing with the issue of player safety began a process of reforming the sport, and is recognized by many now as giving the sport a much wider appeal that allowed it to develop into the modern sports empire it is today. Football in the United States today is the definition of a sports empire. The professional organization, the National Football League (NFL), is made up of thirty-two teams sharing annually over $9 billion in revenue. This includes television rights, ticket sales and merchandise. This revenue dwarfs other professional sports in the United States, being thirty percent greater than professional baseball, the second biggest sport in the United States. The annual NFL championship, the Super Bowl, routinely has had some of the highest television ratings in the history of television. College football, playing in leagues as part of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), is made up of more than 1,280 institutions, conferences and organizations. College football has formed into an enterprise that generates billions in annual television revenues, merchandising, jobs and economic activity. No one could have imagined this kind of success based on American football’s humble beginnings. Shortly after the end of the Civil War, the first official college football game was held between Princeton and Rutgers University in 1869. This was when the sport was still a disorganized collection of town and club teams playing different versions of the game, which they either learned from others or made up on the spot. The rules were generally more like a mix between rugby, wrestling, and soccer and would have been barely recognizable to today’s fans. The games would often end in fights or riots, and players wore no pads or head protection. More colleges began to field football teams and specific rules were developed to standardize the game. Although the college game continued to be violent and bloody, it quickly began to gain popularity. College football’s success resulted in the formation of professional teams, which resulted in the first unofficial professional game which was said to have taken place in 1892 when a few players were paid contracts to compete. The first professional league, with paid players and individual ownership of the teams, was formed in 1902.
As football was developing, the United States was changing very quickly. There was big growth in economic activity to recover from the Civil War, and improving economic conditions had people looking toward sports and entertainment again. Just like in football, there were few rules holding back businesses from growing into giant corporations beyond the control of the government. President Grover Cleveland, who was President in the late 1890’s, was well known during this time for his “laisse-faire” policy that stood for very little government interference in the lives of citizens or businesses. Companies like Standard Oil, General Electric and Carnegie Steel were built into giant corporations and attracted large parts of the population into urban areas around the factories. Large amounts of immigrants were also coming into the country via Ellis Island to work at the big factories. This evoked fear because with such large numbers of unskilled and low-paid workers coming in, it would defeat the union's efforts to raise wages through collective bargaining. In this rough and uncontrolled environment, football’s violence and uncontrolled style fit right in.
At the turn of the century, football was gaining popularity but continued to become more and more controversial. The game was become excessively violent and the rules were broken almost routinely in order to purposely injure an opponent. Dirty play was routine. A game played in 1894 between Harvard and Yale was named the “Hamden Park Blood Bath” after five players were hospitalized and four were crippled with injuries during the match. Across the country colleges began to ban the sport, and important magazines and newspapers began to say it was time for football to end. Football was seen as inferior compared to baseball, which had been around longer and was viewed as more civilized and modern.
A very influential voice in the United States, Harvard University President, Charles William Eliot, did not like athletics in general and compared football to the, “supreme savagery of war.” He wanted the sport to be banned. He said, "No sport is wholesome in which ungenerous or mean acts which easily escape detection contribute to victory."
During this time, a political change in the country was also working against football. The new Progressive Movement was viewed as supporting government control over more parts of daily life. This included more openness in government, civil rights for workers and women, and more control over large business monopolies. A progressive President Roosevelt had just been reelected to a second term in 1904 by a wide margin. He had followed a strict activist policy, breaking up the captains of industry and their big business monopolies like US Steel and Standard Oil, leading a movement to build the Panama canal and pushing a very aggressive foreign policy. He was a very energetic and vocal President, and was not shy about speaking out about public issues. Anti-football fever was at its peak in 1905. Despite efforts from colleges to make the game safer and more controlled, football continued to be dangerous. Eighteen people died in 1905 while playing organized football and public opinion was turning against the game. President Roosevelt was well aware of the controversy. As far back as 1895 he had warned that the “needless brutality” of the game needed to be fixed. But he was an avid sportsman and worried that the game would be ruined if too many changes were made. He had seen his first football game when he was a college freshman and fell in love with the game. He thought that the toughness required to play the game built character. In fact, his own sons were playing football, one playing in college. As President, at the critical moment when public pressure was building, he actively fought against banning the sport and disagreed publicly with Harvard’s President Eliot. In a letter that Roosevelt wrote to Eliot in 1905 he said, “I further think that one reason why [football’s abuses] are not remedied is that so many of our people whose voices would be potent in reforming the game, try to abolish it instead.”
Finally, late in 1905, Roosevelt used his ‘bully pulpit” to take direct action. He called for a meeting with coaches and administrators from the most influential universities. The President used the power of his office to convince the leaders that football was worth saving and it was their job to do it. To show how serious he was about the issue, he even had the Secretary of State attend the meeting. In the meeting, the group agreed to stop dirty play and change the rules of the game to reduce unnecessary violence. Most importantly, a discussion began on what types of safety equipment would be required, such as pads and helmets. The stature and authority identified with the office of the President, and the public attention about the meeting that resulted, went a long way in convincing the public and many critics that the game of football was going to be improved, and public opinion against football began to change.
Shortly after this meeting, sixty-two schools met to form the association that would someday become the NCAA. What came from this meeting was a standard set of rules to play the game, more severe penalties to cut down on dirty play, and an organization plan for the league. The coach of Yale at the time, Walter Camp, is recognized as being a very important influence on the rule changes that made the game more like what we know today. One of the most influential changes, the forward pass, was not really used for decades, but ended up as one of the changes that most changed the game.
As these changes began to take place, the game of football became much more mainstream and widely popular with the public. More colleges now started programs, and media coverage of games became more about the game and less about the violence. As football became more standardized, fans could better understand the game, and individual athletes could more easily become recognizable stars. A mythology around teams and individual players began, with nicknames and legends created based on performance on the field.
It can be argued that President Roosevelt played the key role in saving the sport of football from itself. A less active president, more inclined to stay out of public issues, would not have intervened. The critics of football were powerful people at the time, and only the power of the presidency could have overcome the pressure to ban the sport. The football empire we see today could have been lost forever if not for the enthusiasm and determination of Teddy Roosevelt.

Bibliography
Battista, Judy. "A Rough Rider Tackles a Rough Sport." TheNewYorkTimes.com. August 12, 2011. (accessed March 18, 2013). http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/books/review/the-big-scrum-by-john-j-miller-book-review.html?_r=2&.
In this newspaper article, Battista examines why Teddy Roosevelt was so willing to protect football and explains the lengths he went to in order to do that. This article is extremely informative about Roosevelt’s measures taken to keep football alive in the United States and shows no bias.
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, s.v. “President Eliot on Football,” (accessed March 18, 2013). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_William_Eliot#cite_note-5

The quote by Harvard’s President, Charles Eliot that was taken from this online encyclopedia helped portray how avidly against the sport he was. Also, being the influential voice he was at the time, it showed the struggles Roosevelt had to overcome in order to save football.
Folsom, Burton. "Teddy Roosevelt and the Progressive Vision of History." The Freeman (2010). (accessed March 18, 2013). http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/teddy-roosevelt-and-the-progressive-vision-of-history.
The author of this article provides an in-depth view of the political changes occurring which were working against football. Folsom’s analysis of both the Progressive Era and activist Teddy Roosevelt’s work against big businesses helped illustrate his energy and confidence.
Francis, David. “The Big Business of College Football: Who’s Winning?” TheFiscalTimes.com. January 8, 2013. (accessed March 18, 2013). http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/01/08/The-Big-Business-of-College-Football-Whos-Winning.aspx#page1.
This newspaper article offered numerous stats about the NCAA football program and helped show how successful they are and continue to be. The author’s analysis of the financial side of NCAA football is knowledgeable, thorough and informative.
Gains, Cork, “Players and Owners are Fighting Over the Biggest Pie in Sports,” Business Insider, (accessed March 18, 2013). http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-03-22/news/30057968_1_nfl-lockout-revenue-pie.
This article is completely unbiased and the author provides an NFL analysis from the business side. It strictly illustrates statistics pertaining to the NFL’s financial and popularity ratings.
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This informative article was useful with the way it described the first game played and how much different the game actually was at that time when comparing it to our version today. Also, it analyzed the contribution Walter Camp had on the game and football. Mainly, the way his influential changes made the game more like the way we know it today.
Klein, Christopher. "How Teddy Roosevelt Saved Football." History. September 6, 2012. (accessed March 18, 2013). http://www.history.com/news/how-teddy-roosevelt-saved-football.
The author of this article really helps illustrate how serious Roosevelt was about saving the game of football. It also shows the way he used his power in order to influence everyone, while still finding a way to make the game safer future generations.
Mink, Gwendolyn. Old Labor and New Immigrants in American Political Development: Union, Party and State, 1875-1920. (1990).

The author provides a detailed view of how in the late 1890’s the increasing immigration affected union’s ability to raise wages. This also provides a comparison between the rough living environment and the violence of football at the time.
Pro Football Hall of Fame, “ History: Birth of Pro Football,” (accessed March 18, 2013). http://www.profootballhof.com/history/general/birth.aspx.
This article helps describe the way Teddy Roosevelt’s push for college football inevitably lead to the beginning of professional football. Stemming mainly from college footballs popularity and success.
Reuters News Agency. "Obama not sure he would let son play football." ChicagoTribune.com. January 27, 2013. (accessed March 18, 2013). http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-01-27/news/sns-rt-fbn-newssxa279aa1-20130127_1_cte-nfl-players-violent-hits.
This newspaper article provided a look at the way football is still viewed as a dangerous sport today, even though it does not even compare to the way it was during its upbringing.
Sahlberg, Jacque. "Memorable Games in Harvard-Yale history." YaleDailyNews.com. November 18, 2011. (accessed March 18, 2013). http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2011/11/18/memorable-games-in-harvard-yale-history/.
This newspaper article gives a descriptive look at one of the most dangerous football games ever played. The author provides an in depth look at the dangers of the game before Roosevelt intervened.
Walters, Ryan S., “History Repeating Itself: Grover Cleveland and Modern American society,” Word Press, (n.d.). (accessed March 18, 2013). http://ryanswalters.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/history-is-repeating-itself-grover-cleveland-compared-to-modern-american-society/.
The author of this journal provided a thorough look at how after the improving economic conditions after the Civil War had people looking towards entertainment again, generally being football. Also, Walters provided a comparison between the lack of rules in football and big business do to Grover Cleveland’s ‘laisse-faire’ policy. These similarities help popularity growth with football.