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Five years ago, Rezon set out to challenge a simple but overlooked assumption in sport: that protecting the head was the same as protecting the brain. Five years later, with Halos® trusted by players across 19 sports and 34 countries, that distinction has become harder to ignore [1].

Before Rezon, sport had headguards, scrum caps, and helmets. It had concussion protocols. It had return-to-play guidance. It had sideline assessments. But it did not have a clear category of head worn protection focused on the brain itself; protection designed around the rotational forces that cause the brain to rotate during impact and protection focused on the accumulated damage of small-force sub-concussive impacts [2, 3, 4].

That distinction really matters. Surface protection can reduce cuts, abrasions, bruising and soft-tissue injury. Brain protection has to do something different. Many parents, players, schools, clubs and coaches still misunderstand this distinction; they may recognise concussion better, but they do not fully understand sub-concussion, rotational forces, cumulative damage, and the difference between traditional head protection and brain protection [5].

Five years in, the question is no longer whether brain protection in sport matters. The question is how quickly players, parents, coaches, schools, and clubs decide to protect themselves and those they have a duty of care for by adopting brain protection.

Governing bodies are still moving cautiously, but players, parents, schools and clubs do not need to wait for every decision to come from the top. The evidence is there. The legal pressure is growing. Insurers are removing coverage for head trauma. Neuroscience has moved on [6, 7, 8].

The last five years have given us a clear vantage point. We can see how far the conversation has moved, and how far sport still has to go.

Concussion protocols matter. Diagnosis matters. Return-to-play systems matter. But they are not brain protection.

They begin after impact, after a player has been hit, after symptoms have appeared, after concern has been raised, or after a medical process has been triggered. The Amsterdam 2022 consensus statement on concussion in sport provides guidance on recognition, assessment, rehabilitation and return to sport; all of which are important, but all of which sit within a framework that responds to a suspected injury after it has happened [9].

Managing brain injury after impact is not the same as protecting the brain at the moment of impact.

This is the gap Rezon was created to address. Sport had become more fluent in the language of concussion, but still lacked a practical understanding of what it means to protect the brain at the moment force is transmitted. A protocol cannot reduce rotational acceleration. A return-to-play pathway cannot reduce the cumulative load of repeated sub-concussive head impacts. A sideline assessment cannot protect the brain during the collision itself [2, 3, 4, 9].

Brain protection has to start earlier. It has to be present before impact, during training and competition, in youth sport as well as adult sport, and in routine sub-concussive exposure as well as obvious concussive events [4, 5].

Concussion is only part of the brain injury picture

For too long, sport has treated concussion as the main event. That is understandable. Concussion is the injury people can see. A player may appear dazed, confused, unsteady or symptomatic. A protocol may be activated. A diagnosis may be made [9].

But concussion is not the whole brain injury picture.

Sub-concussive impacts are different. They do not cause symptoms. They do not stop play. They do not trigger a protocol. They happen in training, drills, tackles, headers, collisions, falls and routine contact. They transmit force to the brain. A sub-concussion is a head impact that does not cause concussion symptoms but still transmits forces to the brain; the damage from repeated sub-concussive impacts accumulates over time [4, 5].

And the forces in some sub-concussive impacts can be greater than those recorded in some diagnosed concussive impacts because impacts of greater magnitude than concussive impacts may not cause symptoms [10].

The absence of concussion does not mean the absence of brain injury. The accumulated damage of repeated sub-concussive head impacts is increasingly recognised as central to long-term brain injury risk, including neurodegenerative disease such as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) [4, 5, 10].

This is why the public conversation is still behind the science. The Rezon Brain Protection Survey 2025 found that understanding of sub-concussion is low among people involved in sport, despite higher confidence in recognising concussion [5].

That gap matters. If players, parents and coaches are only looking for concussion symptoms, they miss the larger cumulative risk of repeated, symptomless head impacts. The future of brain protection cannot be built around concussion alone, because many of the impacts that matter never produce a diagnosed concussion [4, 5, 10].

Australian Football Players wearing Rezon Halos® brain protection.

Awareness has improved, but protection has not changed fast enough

Over the past five years, scientific knowledge has rapidly improved. Public understanding has not kept pace.

Most people now recognise the word concussion. Fewer understand sub-concussion. Fewer still understand cumulative exposure, rotational forces, blood-brain barrier disruption, neuro-inflammation, or the relationship between repeated sub-concussions and long-term brain health [3, 4, 5].

That is not just an education problem. It is a protection problem.

Those managing sport have access to the science. They know, or should know, that brain injury risk is not confined to a single visible concussion. They know, or should know, that repeated sub-concussive head impacts matter. They know, or should know, that traditional headgear was not designed to protect the brain from rotational forces and sub-concussions [4, 5, 11, 12].

Yet too much of sport remains focused on what happens after injury. Education. Recognition. Removal. Assessment. Return-to-play. All of those are necessary. None of them is enough [9].

Concussion awareness has improved. Brain protection has not. That gap is now one of the greatest failures in sports safety and player welfare.

Legal pressure is mounting, and sport should not wait for the courts

The legal pressure around brain injury in sport is no longer theoretical.

The FA’s position is that it denies proven scientific evidence linking heading, repeated head impacts or concussion with long-term brain damage was available at the relevant time. That may be a legal defence, but it is not a player welfare strategy for the current generation [6].

The same issue is visible in rugby. World Rugby argues there was no material scientific evidence, at the relevant time, linking repetitive head impacts, including sub-concussive impacts, to long-term neurological harm. At the same time, World Rugby approval processes for match headgear remain focused on scalp and soft-tissue protection, not the reduction of rotational forces associated with brain injury [7, 11, 12].

The insurance sector is also responding. Insurance provider Zurich has said there is “widespread uncertainty” around the potential magnitude of CTE and the long-term effects of concussion. That matters because when insurers begin stepping back from head trauma risk, they are signalling the seriousness, uncertainty and potential cost of repeated brain injury in sport [8].

Taken together, these legal and insurance developments show that brain injury risk in sport can no longer be treated as remote or theoretical. The legal question may take years to resolve. The protection question should not.

Players and parents do not need to wait for a court to decide historic liability before acting on present-day risk. Clubs and schools do not need to wait for governing body mandates before asking whether the equipment being worn is scalp protection or brain protection. Coaches do not need to wait for another lawsuit before reducing unnecessary concussive and sub-concussive head-impact exposure [5, 7, 11].

The first five years proved the need for a new category. The next five years must be about adoption.

The next five years will be different

The next five years will not be shaped by governing bodies.

They will be shaped by players who ask what their headgear is actually certified to protect. By parents who no longer assume that a rugby headguard protects the brain because it looks protective. By coaches who understand that sub-concussive head impacts matter. By schools that recognise brain protection is part of their duty of care. By clubs that move faster than the systems above them [5, 11, 12].

This is now a personal responsibility issue as well as a governance issue.

Governing bodies are still moving cautiously. They are defending historic positions and relying heavily on post-concussion protocol-based approaches. They still treat brain protection as optional, marginal or inconvenient. But players and parents do not need permission to ask better questions [6, 7, 9].

  • What is this product designed to protect?
  • Is it scalp protection or brain protection?
  • Does it reduce rotational force transmission?
  • Has it been independently tested?
  • Is it CE / UKCA Category II PPE certified?

Rezon Halos® was developed for the new category of brain protection.

Halos® uses patented Rotection® technology that has been independently tested to reduce rotational force transmission by up to 61%, has a Virginia Tech 5-star safety rating, and holds CE / UKCA Category II PPE certification. Rezon Halos® is the only non-helmeted head worn protection to hold both CE / UKCA Category II PPE certification and a Virginia Tech 5 Star safety rating [1, 13, 14].

Sport should no longer accept vague claims, visual reassurance or legacy equipment categories that were never designed to protect the brain [11, 12].

The next five years will be shaped by those who decide they are no longer prepared to wait.

Five Years on: Rezon’s mission is more important than ever

Rezon has always been clear.

The mission was never to make sport frightening. It was never to stop people playing the sports they love. It was never to claim that all risk can be removed.

The mission was to protect the brain in sport.

That mission is now more important than ever because the evidence has become harder to ignore. The public conversation has moved. The legal pressure has grown. The neuroscience is clearer. The gap between scalp protection and brain protection is more visible. The responsibility on players, parents, coaches, clubs and schools is greater [2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7].

Sport is worth protecting. Children should be able to play. Athletes should be able to compete. But love for sport cannot require silence about brain injury risk. Tradition cannot be used as an excuse for delay. Protocols cannot be mistaken for protection.

Five years in, Rezon’s position remains unchanged: brain protection must become the new standard in contact, collision and combat sport.

Author: Judith McMinn

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Judith McMinn is the CEO and Founder of Rezon. She had identified something missing from sports. While traditional protective headwear focused on the head and skull, there was nothing effectively protecting the brain. So, she developed brain protection in sport, Halos®.

Read more articles by Judith McMinn

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