I don't know why I didn't see this waaay back when the thread was started; and I won't go back and read through all the posts; but having played "football" through high school and college, I can tell you exactly why it's not as popular in Europe and other countries as it is here. It all boils down to what you grew up with as a kid. Kids in European countries especially haven't been exposed to the game, so when they grow up, and become adults who spend money on their team, they are not going to spend money on a sport they didn't grow up with in the first place; nor are they going to expose their own kids to the sport either. Look at Hockey in Canada and even Northern US states. Kids play hockey all the time on frozen lakes and ponds during the winter, from an awfully early age.
I recall in the early 70's a football game between Cincinnati and Pittsburgh on Monday Night Football. The game was in Cincinnati, and it started snowing very hard outside. My friends and I all put on our Ken Anderson jerseys and ran outside and played in the snow until our moms all yelled at us to put on coats; then we came inside, drank hot chocolate and watched the game until we had to go to bed. We grew up playing "Kill the Man With the Ball" in the back yard. We played Pee Wee football, pick-up games in the neighborhood, and then in High School, and some of us college. We grew up with the sport.
That is the same reason that kids play baseball so much in Latin and South America. In Europe it's primarily soccer.
(Soccer btw was a term originated by the Brits at Oxford. Short for "Association". So it's Soccer. Get over it)
I for one, find soccer more boring than watching flies fuck. When you watch flies fuck, at least you know something is scoring! How is it fun to watch a bunch of people run around for 90 minutes kicking a ball back and forth and no one scores? Ever. Yawwwwwn. That's why that one announcer screams "GOOOOOOAAAAAALLLL!!!" It's to wake everybody the fuck up.
Anyway. Football is gaining popularity. It's played in Canada (granted by kids with weak ankles but still...
) And look at places like American Samoa. It's become a way of life for most young men there now. Mexico City is begging the NFL for a team. Japan is starting to take notice (but baseball reigns supreme there by far); and football is gaining in popularity in Eastern European countries.
As for which is tougher, Rugby or Football...well I'm biased. But, I had a chance to meet Margus Hunt from the Bengals at a fundraiser this past winter. Margus is from Estonia. He played and excelled at a number of track and field sports, winning a ton of international accolades. He had a chance to play for (and save really) the SMU track team a few years ago, but when he got to the states, SMU dropped their track program. He was set to transfer to another school, when the SMU football coach asked him to try out for the football team.
Margus is a freak of nature. At the time he was 6'8" and weighed nearly 300 pounds. Picture "The Mountain" from GoT (okay a bit of a stretch as he's about 100 lbs lighter than that Norsk beast but you get the idea). He was an animal at SMU. The Bengals drafted him last year, and he struggled to learn the complexities and speed of the pro game. Margus and I swapped stories about college football. I played D1 football, and can tell you that the collisions we took were literally like being in a high speed auto accident every Saturday during the season. My body is beaten down now all these years later as a result. Margus agreed with me. He had played Rugby, and was not prepared for the aggressiveness and violence of the game. He swears that the majority of rugby players (even professionally) couldn't do very well playing even at the collegiate level. Another example of this is that Lindsay Crook, a pro rugby player from Australia came to Cincinnati last year to enroll at the University of Cincinnati. He turned down a spot on the Olympic team to follow his life long dream of playing "football" in America. The UC staff says it will take him at least two years to adjust to the speed, complexities, and hits of the game. Yes, football players wear pads; but if they didn't guys would get killed every week.
Topic: Why Isn't American Football More Popular Outside of America? (Read 27216 times)