Jennifer Trivedi

I was raised on football.

On weekends, you can find me in front of the television glued to NCAA and NFL games. And though baseball is called “America’s pastime,” viewers in the United States and, increasingly, around the world, are regularly following American football at all levels.

While NFL ratings are down, there has been speculation that this may be a side effect of viewers being distracted by other major issues, including disasters like Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, in addition to recent changes in which games are watched.

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Two topics have recently been widely discussed in America in the past few days: first, the debate over NFL players kneeling during the national anthem and, second, the devastation wrought by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.

Although the President denied that his commentary on kneeling NFL players distracted from his response to Maria, media and public discussion have linked the two, leading to questions about if the President was too distracted with the NFL. The federal government is starting to respond, but many people have been critical of the delays.

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The NFL, meanwhile, has announced that they will use their Week 4 games as a fundraiser for Puerto Rico.

This is far from the first time that American football and disasters have intertwined. Over the years, the idea of sports as an important cultural touchstone in disasters has come up when people interact with teams by things like attending local high school games after a disaster affects their community, when fans rally around their team as a symbol, or when famous athletes reach out to help.

These cultural and social bonds may influence perceptions about emergency management, distribution of aid, and physical relief, recovery, and rebuilding efforts.

When the Saints returned to the Superdome in 2006 quarterback Drew Brees’ comments reflected what many had felt about the team’s return: “I think it symbolized not only maybe the resurgence of our football team, but the resurgence of the city and the recovery and the rebirth.”

Ten years later, when areas of Louisiana like Denham Springs were inundated with floodwaters, Denham Springs High School players discussed with The Advocate newspaper how returning to the field made them feel. As running back Tyre Golmond said, “Everything that has happened is not normal. To be able to strap this helmet on and play, it felt so good.”

As Hurricane Irma threatened Florida, universities and officials debated canceling college football games. Coaches got involved as well, like when University of Miami head Coach Mark Richt expressed dismay that fans attributed the game cancellation to motives other than an effort to keep people safe.

LSU’s head coach Ed Orgeron appeared in an ad promoting the Louisiana Governor’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness’s new “Get a Game Plan” website, encouraging local residents to prepare for disasters.

Many football players and teams also offer resources to affected communities. After the 2016 Louisiana floods, the New Orleans Saints and the NFL hosted a special event for Denham Springs High School, replacing flood-lost equipment and other resources. The Seattle Seahawks sent equipment to Episcopal High School in Baton Rouge through former Seahawks player Jimmy Williams.

Football facilities have become staging grounds for preparedness and relief. The Superdome in New Orleans served as a shelter of last resort for Hurricane Katrina. Katrina also turned Biloxi, Mississippi’s old municipal Yankee Stadium into a central Salvation Army center. In 2017 Hurricane Irma turned the University of Central Florida’s football stadium into a space to house National Guardsmen and their supplies.

Following the Louisiana 2016 floods, when flooded homes needed to be emptied, 100 University of Louisiana at Lafayette players headed into affected areas to help. The University of Houston’s football team worked to gather aid for affected residents with help from other teams like the UTSA, Baylor, Texas Tech, Texas, SMU, and UNT.

Football fans are not passive in this, as searching for ways to contribute to recovery efforts. Football organizations and players provide outlets for fans to help.

Houston Texans defensive end JJ Watt raised more than $37 million from fans and the public in response to Harvey’s impact on the Houston area. The Dallas Cowboys hosted a live telethon to raise Harvey relief funds after practice.

Online fan sites can also provide platforms for sharing information on game changes and emergency preparedness. The popular fan site reddit.com/r/CFB shared tweets and updates about game schedule changes with disasters like Irma.

It also provided a virtual community in which users discussed the disasters and what people were doing in them, provided important information sources, and helped relieve stress with a few jokes.

In disasters, football and fan communities show great strength and resolve in response and recovery efforts off the field. In many areas, teams are an active part of physical and emotional recovery and the act of teams and fans coming together to offer aid is a powerful symbol in a disaster.

Teams working together as a unit may also be better organized to provide aid or comfort as a group, increasing their reach over a single individual. Coaches and athletes, admired by some Americans, may have a more magnified voice and be able to draw attention to specific issues.

And football games provide local residents and fans with the opportunity to take a moment, take a deep breath, and enjoy the game.

Jennifer Trivedi is a disaster anthropologist working as a post-doctoral researcher at the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware. Her research focuses on floods and hurricanes in the United States.