75,000 people in the stands, cheering, praying your team is going to score on the next play. You just made the 1st down and the next play is certainly coming to you, the star wide receiver. This game is on you.

Just last season, more than 4,000 man games were missed by players due to injuries, which is a number the NBA cannot ignore. The league has decreased their four games in five nights scenarios from 70 to 27, while decreasing the back-to-back games from 19.3 to 17.8 per team.

Case Keenum was sacked, fell hard on the turf, and immediately grabbed his head. Although a teammate tried helping him up, he went down again on all fours.

Sauna suits while running on the treadmill, hours of sitting in the sauna wearing sweat suits, Epsom salt baths with menthol, the inability to drink water or eat for 24 hours, all while continuing fight preparation. This is the reality for most fighters the day before the weigh-ins with at least another 15 pounds to shed, often known as “drying out.”

There are 1,071,775 high school football athletes—the NCAA has 5.5% and the NFL only has .07% of the number of athletes. With this many athletes in just football alone, the risks of the young athletes are increasingly high with a shortage of full-time athletic trainers at practices and games.

In the NCAA there are 20,718 football injuries a year, and of those, 841 are spinal injuries. A sudden, traumatic blow to the spine, like a helmet-to-helmet collision, often causes spinal injuries. Research shows that spinal injuries lead to permanent disability due to cervical cord and brain injuries. However, the college teams continue to allow their student-athletes to play with these injuries, disregarding the possible long-term effects.

A potential class action lawsuit hit the WWE in early 2015, led by three former WWE wrestlers, Russ McCullough, Ryan Sakoda, and Matt Wiese. Most WWE wrestlers were not informed by the organization of health consequences of repetitive head trauma.

The only opposition the bill received was from the Department of Industrial Relations who claim that the Board of Psychology does not recognize “neuropsychology” as a separate specialty; therefore, the workers’ compensation system should not either. On October 6, 2015, Governor Jerry Brown vetoed the bill, agreeing with the opponents.

NHL games are no doubt exciting. NHL hockey players’ incredible athletic ability is on display every game. However, it is often the violence inherent in the culture of the game that brings fans to their feet. There is no denying that big hits, checking, and fights sell tickets.

Fame, Fortune, Glory—what spectators imagine is the life of an NFL athlete. They do not see the grueling hours of practice and the countless injuries these athletes sustain throughout their careers. NFL athletes peak at 25 years of age and have an average career length of three and a half years. When their careers come to end, what’s next?