This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, February 8th, 2013. I'm Caleb Brown.

Goner the days of football players assuming all of the risks of their own choices to play a high impact

contact sport, today football is the subject of a growing body of litigation surrounding brain injury.

Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, comments.

Years ago I read a headline in the Louisville Courier Journal which of course at one time was a

large boxing venue and the headline was basically the risk of brain

injury keeps boxing controversial and I thought the same thing as with

litigation related to brain injury in football which is well

look once you get over the fact that these are people beating each other up to

entertain a large number of people, it shouldn't be too

controversial that there are risks associated with beating people up.

And football, it seems like a prime example of that. I think

legally boxing and football are going to be seen in two different lights. With

boxing the whole point of the game is to aim blows at the other guys had and with football it will be

argued and I suspect with some success that you knew it was rough on the muscles and the

joints you knew that there were a lot of

physical risks but the players were not told how serious the risk of brain

damage was and might not have made the same decisions if they had been

told. Okay so what are we seeing right now with respect to what we know what we

should have known what players should have been told about brain injury and the scope of litigation here.

Well, we know that more than 4,000 veteran players are now being represented in claims for compensation. That's a lot and that

means that there is likely to be litigation for years to come. The litigation

...