REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL
EXPLORES THE SETTLEMENT OF THE NFL CONCUSSION LAWSUIT
WHEN THE EMMY®-WINNING SHOW RETURNS TONIGHT (TUESDAY, SEPT. 17) ON HBO
Now in its 19th season, REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL presents an all-new edition when its 198th show, available in HDTV, debuts TUESDAY, SEPT. 17 (10:00 p.m. ET/PT & 9:00 p.m. CT) on HBO.
Other HBO playdates: Sept. 17 (2:50 a.m.), 20 (1:00 p.m., 8:00 p.m.), 22 (8:00 a.m.), 25 (5:00 p.m., midnight), 28 (10:00 a.m., 1:45 a.m.) and 30 (10:30 a.m.), and Oct. 1 (5:30 p.m.)
HBO2 playdates: Sept. 18 (7:00 p.m., 5:00 a.m.), 21 (1:55 p.m.), 24 (1:25 p.m., 1:40 a.m.) and 27 (11:00 a.m., 8:00 p.m.), and Oct. 2 (1:00 p.m., 12:10 a.m.) and 6 (7:00 a.m.)
HBO On Demand® availability: Sept. 23-Oct. 14. The show will also be available on HBO GO®.
Segments include:
*Settling. Last month, the National Football League and former players who were suing the league over the long-term effects of head trauma, settled the high-profile, class-action lawsuit for $765 million. REAL SPORTS correspondent Jon Frankel meets with Christopher Seeger, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, and former players Dorsey Levens and Kevin Turner, all in their first national TV interview since the settlement.
Producer: Chapman Downes.
Excerpts:
Dorsey Levens was once an NFL star, a running back on the great Green Bay Packers teams of the ‘90s. But that was then.
For the last two years Levens has been leading the charge against the NFL, a leading voice in the class-action suit filed by thousands of former players or the families they’ve left behind.
JON FRANKEL:
“What did you expect to come out of the lawsuit?”
DORSEY LEVENS:
“It was about gettin’ guys help. You know, and when a guy calls me and says, ‘I’ve called the NFL five times. I can’t get a response. My head hurts all the time. And if if I can’t get help, I’m gonna take care of it.’ I couldn’t sleep. What do you say to a guy like that? I’m gonna do my best to help you out.”
He wanted a trial that would get billions of dollars out of the NFL and reveal if the league knew all along that its players were at risk.
DORSEY LEVENS:
“I wanted to know what they knew and when they knew it.”
It was expected to be a long, drawn out battle… but then – suddenly – it was over.
Last month the players announced they had accepted a settlement from the NFL… not of billions of dollars… but $765 million. Immediately, the players’ decision was panned … critics noting the immense wealth of the NFL. And the fact the money would have to be split among potentially thousands of ailing players.
Among those most upset with the deal – Dorsey Levens himself.
DORSEY LEVENS:
“This is a great victory for them. I didn’t understand how they got off so lightly.”
JON FRANKEL:
“Were there a lot guys were who sittin’ there sayin’ to the lawyers, ‘What? Only $765 million?’”
DORSEY LEVENS:
“Yeah, there were a lot guys like that.”
JON FRANKEL:
“And they would have liked to have seen a real public exposure of the NFL?”
DORSEY LEVENS:
“Yes.”
CHRISTOPHER SEEGER:
“I think we got every nickel we could get. I know the NFL has lots of nickels. But we got every nickel that we could get.”
Christopher Seeger was the players’ lawyer and had been expected by most to deliver a lot more. This was, after all, the man who’d extracted a five-billion dollar negligence settlement from the pharmaceutical giant Merck. But Seeger admits that the case against the NFL was flawed.
CHRISTOPHER SEEGER:
“I’m not making the argument for the NFL, but as the lawyer for the players, I have to recognize one thing about this case. Many of the players, you know, who play two or three years in the NFL, four years in the NFL, spent more time playing football outside the NFL.”
JON FRANKEL:
“Pop Warner, high school, college.”
CHRISTOPHER SEEGER:
“So you know there were issues there.”
And it wasn’t just the difficulty of proving that the players were hurt in the NFL, Seeger says. There was also the risk that with so many plaintiffs, any unfavorable ruling could have a domino effect.
CHRISTOPHER SEEGER:
“Where are these cases gonna go if we continue to litigate? Will some of these guys– will they have their cases dismissed by the judge? And if they get dismissed, it had the potential to dismiss thousands of cases.”
But Seeger says his main inspiration to settle was this man … who had fought alongside Dorsey Levens – literally – in the legal battle against the league.
Like Levens, Kevin Turner was a long-time running back in the NFL in the 1990s. But unlike Levens, he is now dying.
Turner suffers from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which destroys the muscles of the body and keeps going until it shuts down the lungs. The disease has been linked to head trauma.
CHRISTOPHER SEEGER:
“Kevin inspired a lot of the thinking behind the settlement. He might not be here 10 years from now. So what good will a trial do for Kevin? We could have pushed for more and more and more. But would that really have been helping Kevin and his kids?”
JON FRANKEL:
“Given the prognosis that doctors had given you, did you think you would live to see a conclusion?”
KEVIN TURNER:
“No. No.”
JON FRANKEL:
“Do you think the NFL got away cheap?”
KEVIN TURNER:
“If you call three quarters of a billion cheap. Certainly. And– and to them, maybe it is. Maybe they’re behind closed doors, laughin’ their ass off. But so far the people that I’ve seen that are complaining I don’t think any of those people are symptomatic right now. The people that have dementia, A.L.S. are happy with it. You know, ’cause they need it now.”
Dorsey Levens says he is happy for Turner too, but worries that there could be many more men like Turner in the future needing money from an ever-shrinking pot perhaps even Levens himself.
JON FRANKEL:
“Do you think you have any traumatic brain injury symptoms?”
DORSEY LEVENS:
“I do. The sleeplessness, the blurred vision, the ringing in the ears. You know, some irritability. It’s there.”
JON FRANKEL:
“What’s your worst nightmare?”
DORSEY LEVENS:
“That I end up like Kevin Turner.”
JON FRANKEL:
And there’s nothin’ you can do to safeguard yourself against it?
DORSEY LEVENS:
“It’s too late. If there was any damage, it’s already done. Now you just gotta wait and see. Now you play the waitin’ game, which is terrifying in itself because the first time you forget where your keys are, you know, you kinda lose- it’s just like– it’s happening. You know, any little thing that happens, you start to question it.”
JON FRANKEL:
“What if, in 10-15 years from now, you’ve got a hundred Kevin Turners. Is there enough money?”
CHRISTOPHER SEEGER:
“This fund that we created will be around for 65 years. So the youngest player retiring today will have access to that fund if he needs it. We had experts that looked at every aspect of this, economists, actuaries, medical experts. We can anticipate how many guys, you know, God forbid, will wind up with A.L.S. like Kevin has. So we’re satisfied that we will– this fund will be there right to the bitter end.”
CHRISTOPHER SEEGER:
“The only piece that ended was the legal fight between the retired players and the NFL. Mothers are still gonna have to think if they want their kids playing football. Coaches are gonna have to think about how they take care of their players. We didn’t end the debate about whether concussions in football is okay.”
DORSEY LEVENS:
“This issue’s not goin’ away. Just because the lawsuit is over, this concussion issue is not going away. It’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
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