The US Courts have approved a potential $1bn, 65-year deal for future NFL concussions lawsuits

This new deal does allow the NFL the possibility of never disclosing the full amount of information they have regarding the risks of the game, after a federal judge approved a plan to resolve many of the thousands of concussion lawsuits that could cost the league $1bn over 65 years.The NFL expects 6,000 of nearly 20,000 retired players to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease or moderate dementia sooner or later, and this settlement, which was approved on Wednesday by a federal judge in Philadelphia would see a sum of around $190,000 allocated to each one of those affected, on average. The way the deal would work would be that $1m to $5m will be allocated for those diagnosed in their 30s and 40s with Parkinson’s disease or Lou Gehrig’s disease, or for those deaths involving chronic brain trauma.A top NFL tipster has known that the League has been accused of not doing enough to tackle this problem for years and there was never a clear enough anti concussion rule in place similar to the one laid out for the game of Rugby. Players’ lawyers have argued that the settlement will help families get needed financial awards or medical testing, avoiding them all future expensive and strenuous legal battles in order to get what they deserve. Senior U.S. District Judge Anita Brody approved the deal after twice sending it back to lawyers over concerns about the specific funding not being enough and even if the negotiations did not modify the original figure set out, it was eliminated as being a capped one. On the down side for public interest though, this deal does allow the NFL to never have to disclose what it knew about the risks and treatment of concussions, which is a real shame, but the total NFL pay-outsover the 65 year period, including interest and $112m sought for lawyer fees, is expected to be more than $1bn which can be considered a starting point. A top NFL expert has criticized the fact that it seem that the NFL is getting off lightly giventheir annual revenue of about $10bn, bring the 65-year revenue total to $650bn compared to the miserly $1bn set aside for this compensation plan, but plaintiffs would have first had to fight their way into and then through, possibly, months of litigation. There have been those though who have outright rejected this settlement and they are around 200 NFL retirees or their families, whoplan to sue the league individually. These include the family of Junior Seau, the popular Pro Bowler who killed himself at his San Diego home in 2012 after several years of increasingly erratic behaviour which an autopsy showed was due to his suffering from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. An NFL betting expert is certain that this will not be the end of this, as more and more of the top contact sports are beginning to bow down to public pressure which wants to see the greatly intense clashes without this shortening the lives of many of those involved.