The Guardian: Injury pay cuts and limited leverage: five brutal truths about NFL
UC study cited regarding NFL contracts and how players actions, on and off the field
An obvious injury on the football field, such as we saw with Buffalo Bills' safety Damar Hamlin, can sideline a player for a game, weeks, or indefinitely. How this affects their health is of primary concern, but financial setbacks come into play as well, according to an in-depth article on NFL contacts in "The Guardian."
The article outlines how NFL contacts are tailored to the individual player and risk assessment; and it’s not only what they do on the field that can have financial caveats. Riding a motorcycle, for example, might be forbidden in the contact and any injuries from an accident might be cause for breach of contract.
Behaviors can impact player finances as well, says UC political scientist David Niven, an associate professor in the School of Public and International Affairs cited in the article.
What Niven found is that after the national anthem kneeling protests against racial inequality, “a far greater percentage of protesters [than non-protesters] received a salary cut, that protesters’ overall salaries grew at a notably slower rate, and that protesters were vastly more likely to be sent to another team.”
Featured image at top courtesy of Unsplash.
Impact Lives Here
The University of Cincinnati is leading public urban universities into a new era of innovation and impact. Our faculty, staff and students are saving lives, changing outcomes and bending the future in our city's direction. Next Lives Here.
Related Stories
Love it or raze it?
February 20, 2026
An architectural magazine covered the demolition of UC's Crosley Tower.
Social media linked to student loneliness
February 20, 2026
Inside Higher Education highlighted a new study by the University of Cincinnati that found that college students across the country who spent more time on social media reported feeling more loneliness.
Before the medals: The science behind training for freezing mountain air
February 19, 2026
From freezing temperatures to thin mountain air, University of Cincinnati exercise physiologist Christopher Kotarsky, PhD, explained how cold and altitude impact Olympic performance in a recent WLWT-TV/Ch. 5 news report.