NFL Players and Families to See Controversial 'Concussion' for Free

Sony Pictures Entertainment announced today it is offering NFL players and their families free admission to see the film “Concussion,” which is focused on the issue of football-related brain trauma.

According to Sony, the studio has already held private screenings in each NFL city, reaching out to current and former players to give them a chance to see the movie.

“This is a movie for the players, so we wanted to give them a chance to see it before its nationwide release and free admission during its run in theaters,” director Ridley Scott and producer Giannina Scott said in a joint statement.

Players can get free admission for themselves and one other person by presenting their National Football League Players Association membership card at any Cinemark theater.

The film stars Will Smith as Dr. Bennet Omalu, a forensic neuropathologist who discovered CTE, a football-related brain trauma, in a professional player and struggled to spread the word among players and the league.

In 2014, scientists studying the brains of 79 deceased NFL players found evidence of CTE in 76 of them, according to Mother Jones.

In acknowledgement of the concussion problem, the NFL instituted the Madden Rule, named after former player, coach and Pleasanton resident John Madden. It states that any concussed player must be escorted from the field and monitored by medical staff. Under the Madden Rule, which Madden himself suggested, a concussed player isn’t allowed back on the field during the game for any reason.

City News Service and Patch staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.