Why you should still talk football

My wife hates sports and has always had special vitriol toward football. Being an art school chick who hung out with goths and hipsters, she learned to tune out all the maniacal Green Bay cheese heads in her family while growing up in the suburbs of Milwaukee. Even after marrying a sports maniac like me, she kept her distance from athletics, whether it be Olympics, World Cups or World Series. Case in point: A few years ago, I got a chance to work Brett Favre for an advertising campaign; she asked me who he was.

Football is a media behemoth that has come to dominate American culture whether you like it or not. It is estimated that the NFL brings in revenue equal to the Hollywood film industry. It cannot be ignored-especially these days.

Whether you're a cultural anthropologist or just an average Joe, your exposure to the social issues brought up recently by the game and its players is undeniably important. Americans have been forced into serious dialogue about matters that elevate water-cooler talk to humanism and "us-as-a-society" levels. And the proliferation of social media has kept the topics going in neighborhood bars, on "SNL" and via major news networks like CNN and BBC. As in the past, sport continues to be the conduit for furthering important conversations about community.

Has any other platform in recent memory brought up such a wide range of issues? In the past few years, we've had contentious debates about Aaron Hernandez and his homicide trial, Ray Rice and his domestic violence charges, the Minnesota Vikings sex boat scandal, replacement referees and their contract disputes, Michael Vick and dog fighting; protecting your children from concussions; suicide; disciplining your children; the coming out of Michael Sam; the use of the N-word on the field; illegal video-taping of opposing teams' practices and side-line reporters in hotel rooms; violent rookie hazing and a culture of bullying by Richie Incognito of the Miami Dolphins; and Janet Jackson's infamous Super Bowl "Nipplegate." Heck, you could even throw the Washington Redskins name dispute into the fray.

All the bad press and faux pas generated by Commissioner Roger Goodell's office has created some concern among the sport's true fans, and there's a lot of chatter that the popular NFL's high and mighty shield may finally have been cut down to size. But has it really? Outside of some PR-based wrist-slapping from some advertisers and head-shaking from some fans, last time I checked the stadiums are still packed and my buddies are still cluttered around the flatscreen yelling at Jay Cutler interceptions. In many ways, have all these controversies actually fed the beast and made the sport more popular than ever?

Back to my NPR-loving wife: Funny thing is that lately she talks about football almost as much as I do. She can drop names like Vick, Belichick and Rice at the drop of a punt. Who knows, getting her to do a fantasy team next year just might be possible.