Wake-up call or business as usual: media framing of four concussion-related retirements in the Australian Football League

Merryn Sherwood; Peter English; Alan J. Pearce

doi:10.1080/17430437.2026.2726304

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Wake-up call or business as usual: media framing of four concussion-related retirements in the Australian Football League

Journal article

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Wake-up call or business as usual: media framing of four concussion-related retirements in the Australian Football League

Merryn Sherwood, Peter English and Alan J. Pearce

Sport in Society, Vol.Advanced access

09-Sep-2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2026.2726304

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Abstract

Media framing

concussion

masculinities

sport journalism

sport media

AFL

Media framing of concussion in sport continues to be important as a primary way in which the public understands brain injuries. Australia's unique national football code, Australian Rules football, is now contending with a growing concussion problem including frequent concussion-related medical retirements in the men's AFL competition. The 2024 season saw four retirements in just six months. As the consequences of concussion and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) expand, this study offers an opportunity to explore media framing of this cluster of retirements. It found some reporting underscored the seriousness of concussion and brain injuries in sport, but much of the coverage was news reporting that treated the player retirements as individual stories that were not linked to each other or the wider problem. This study shows how the structure of sports journalism work has the potential to downplay the consequences of brain injuries and re-normalize concussion risk in contact sport.

Details

Title: Wake-up call or business as usual: media framing of four concussion-related retirements in the Australian Football League
Authors: Merryn Sherwood (Corresponding Author) - La Trobe University
Peter English - University of the Sunshine Coast
Alan J. Pearce - Swinburne University of Technology
Publication details: Sport in Society, Vol.Advanced access
Publisher: Routledge
DOI: 10.1080/17430437.2026.2726304
ISSN: 1743-0445
Copyright note: © 2026 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Data Availability: The overview of data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, MS, upon reasonable request. Restrictions apply to the availability of full data, some of which was available under database licence for this study.
Organisation Unit: School of Business and Creative Industries; Work, Live and Play Research Cluster
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991262586102621
Output Type: Journal article

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