Football may get a lot of study recently, because its one of the most popular sports.
But Basketball injuries can ruin you for life as well. I have a cousin who has severe amnesia after getting knocked out during a Basketball match. Its like years of his life were wiped away after his concussion. He was a straight-A student too, these sorts of things are severely damaging to your student career.
Brain injuries exist in a lot of sports. Football is particularly dangerous but the dangers in other sports (Boxing, MMA, Basketball, Soccer) are severe as well.
Any head injury in all sports (or not sports for that matter) are incredibly devastating. That being said, what happened to your cousin (I am sorry about that) is an anomaly in basketball. Most basketball injuries are to legs then hands/arms. Concussions are rare in basketball. Not so much in football.
In my view, there is a very big line between head and spine injuries and any other physical issues long term. Today, people can have artificial hip and knee joints that are acceptable for every day life. If an athlete wants to destroy his legs in exchange for millions, I have no real issues with that. I start to struggle when these guys are doing lasting, unseen, and irreparable damage to their brains. It has become harder and harder for me to watch football over the last 5 years. I watch 85-90% less football than I used to. Most of this time has gone onto watching soccer (which does have some concussion issues of its own) and basketball. I don't think that LeBron James is comprising his future each play he runs. I did feel that way while watching each down in an NFL game.
The biggest difference is that most parents don't sign their kids up for Boxing in kindergarten.
I was a big kid (I'm 6'5" now), and I live in the south, so of course my parents signed me up to play football at 6.
In other sports where kids start very young, like soccer, the contact injuries are usually a result of accidents. You aren't trying to slam into people at full speed.
Its pretty common to use your head to physically stop or even change the direction of the ball in Soccer. There are accidents of course, but the standard norms of Soccer still don't seem very healthy for the brain.
I'm aware of the "Football towns" across USA. Basketball is bigger in my area though, which might be why I hear more about Basketball-related injuries.
Youth soccer in America has rules against heading the ball. Under 11 can't do it at all, and there are time limits and incidence limits for kids older than that (though it probably needs to be outright banned for minors).
In addition to concussions, football players are also believed to receive repeated microtrauma from running into each other repeatedly, which contributes to CTE.
Football is a full contact sport. In games and in training, you are repeatedly slamming into people at full speed. There is nothing comparable in soccer or basketball outside of accidents (which by nature of being accidents happen much less frequently).
I'll gladly hit a 450 gram[1] ball with my head, rather than a 110 kilogram linebacker[2][4].
Sure, the velocity of the ball is faster (average professional level is ~27 m/s [3]) and the relation with that variable is squared (E = ½mv²), but linebackers still run at 7.6 m/s [4]
That's already an order of magnitude difference, while not even counting the momentum and impulse: soccer balls are pretty elastic, compared to linebackers...
I think football is categorically different than other dangerous sports:
* Far, far, far more people participating at high levels (just based on team size).
* Impact is less obvious/direct, so youth and young adults have a harder time recognizing the danger: CTE tends to manifest long after players are out of the spotlight.
* The NFL has actively tried to cover up the danger of concussions; I'm not aware of any other governing body working so hard to harm those it should be protecting.
But Basketball injuries can ruin you for life as well. I have a cousin who has severe amnesia after getting knocked out during a Basketball match. Its like years of his life were wiped away after his concussion. He was a straight-A student too, these sorts of things are severely damaging to your student career.
Brain injuries exist in a lot of sports. Football is particularly dangerous but the dangers in other sports (Boxing, MMA, Basketball, Soccer) are severe as well.