Football and the Scarcity of Death

Following the massive casualties of the Second World War and the televisual spectacle that was Vietnam, death in contemporary warfare has come to bear a substantial cost, not only in terms of the pragmatics of human resource expenditures (today a factor of materiel much like the gun or food ration), but in terms of a social cost that is amplified and multiplied by the media.

And more recently, the enemies that constitute the opponent for the erstwhile armies of the nation-state have become guerrilla or paramilitary in nature, or cellular terrorist organizations. In other words, there will no longer be the mass bloodbaths of Normandy, etc. Machines have obsolesced our warriors, while our enemies are more fragmented than before. Death in the overdeveloped and post-industrial nation-state becomes scarce, perhaps a logical outcome of the shift from a society based on production to one based on consumption.

Question: In the wake of these changes, does gridiron football ascend to the pinnacle of American sporting culture since it offers a highly ritualized form of (obsolesced) war that allows us to continue to experience mass-produced death, albeit in simulated (and weak substitute) form?