NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell (left) and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver are shown in this edited photo. Both commissioners have faced member conduct challenges in 2014.
Football and basketball are fundamentally very different sports. In brief, the former is a game of hard hits and intense trauma to almost every part of the body — trauma that leads to permanent damage more often than not. Basketball, on the other hand, is a less violent, more fluid game that rarely entails damaging contact and definitely never shortens the lifespan of its players. Alas, despite distinct differences in the sports themselves, there are similarities between football and basketball, with no similarity currently more prominent than the overwhelming popularity of each sport.