Growth and popularity of American football within the sports world
One of the most popular sports in the United States and Canada is American football. This contact team sport is really a blend of physical play in conjunction with strategic motion together with the ultimate objective of scoring points by furthering the ball in the opponents goal line or reaching their end zone by either carrying the ball and running along with it or passing it to a team member. The team which scores the maximum points in the stipulated time is declared the winner.
American football has its origins in rugby football but has adapted itself with some changes into the American and Canadian system. Though Canadian football and American football are predominantly quite similar there are some variations in the forms like in the team size, playing area, number of downs, time rules etc. The differences are certainly not major and each can be adapted into another with some degree of tuning.
There are two major types of American football played in the USA, namely, collegiate football and professional football. Together with the growth as well as the ever increasing popularity quite a few football leagues were born in the nation. Two of the most powerful and prestigious leagues that are around in the United States presently are the National Football League as well as the United Football League.
American football games that see the participation of student athletes from the various colleges, military academies and universities across the nation is known as collegiate or college football. It had been through college football the American football came into the news and became as big a sport as it’s today. Though football or rugby was played mostly in schools in England, the game was exported to America. The first American football game to get played in America was in 1874 between Harvard University and McGill University, Montreal. The first collegiate football competition occured the next year in 1875 in a match played between Tufts University and Harvard.
Modern day college football is in the sports news from the first kick off in the football season on the first Labor Day weekend a week prior to the NFL games and continues until the beginning of December. The penultimate weekend of the college football season sees most of the rivalry matches and conference games being played.
The professional football players are teams that play American football at a professional level. These professional teams are a part of the two leagues in the Unites States called the NFL and the UFL. The NFL enjoys the status of being the largest professional football league on the globe. Formed with eleven teams this league has now grown in strength and today consists of 32 teams. The league is further split up into the American Football Conference plus the National Football conference and the conferences contain four divisions consisting of four teams each respectively.
The NFL season particularly the Super Bowl, which is the final championship game is followed by sports enthusiasts and news providers equally as it truly is the most significant games among the Americans.