The NFL is donating $30 million to the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health in order to fund research into brain injuries and other medical issues.
The donation is the largest in NFL history.
“Our commitment here is to hopefully help set the standard and lead the way in research about head injuries, and we’re doing it with the leading scientists,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a telephone interview.
The first set of initiatives in the NIH research funded by the NFL’s donation is to focus on mild traumatic brain injuries, said Story C. Landis, the director for the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, one of the 27 institutes and centers comprising NIH.
“We are really excited about this partnership,” Landis said in a phone interview. “I think their engagement and the potential future engagement of other sports organizations has the potential to produce great progress in our understanding of brain injuries in sports and outside of sports as well.”
NFL players suffered 266 concussions last season, according to an analysis of the league’s injury data performed by Edgeworth Economics, a consulting firm with ties to the players’ union.