Why is dog fighting more morally repugnant than football?

Malcom Gladwell asks a very good question.

I’m a huge college football fan and like my NFL fix too. This article is to put it mildly extremely disturbing.

I don’t know whether it’s a function of watching games in HDTV on a bigger screen or just getting older and less reckless, but even before reading this article I had been struck by the incredible violence of high level football, especially the NFL. The players are so huge and so fast and so strong that every play ends up featuring the equivalent of a bunch of moderate car crashes. I remember saying to somebody I was watching a game with the other day that I don’t understand how five guys aren’t getting seriously hurt on every play. Apparently they are.