Football is by far the most popular sport in the United States. It is a team sport involving two teams of 11 players. The game consists of scoring more points than the opponent during regular game time.
If you love sports and enjoy playing your favourite teams and athletes, then you should look for reliable sports news websites. This will give you access to the latest information and help you get a better grasp of the specifics of the competition.
History of football
It is not known where football came from. According to many experts of this discipline, its origins should be sought in sports such as soccer and rugby, which in the XIX century appeared on the British Isles. At the outset, matches, without defined rules of play, were organised in American universities. A match between Rutgers University and Princeton University in 1869 is considered to be the first official meeting of football.
Apart from the creation of clear rules of the game, the biggest problem was fatalities on the field. It is worth noting that 40 athletes died in the first decade of the twentieth century! The reason for this situation was not the rules of the game, but primarily the equipment available to the players, or even the lack of it. In such anguish, the most popular sporting discipline in the United States was born, and its development came after the First World War.
It was then that new rules of the game were introduced, which still exist today with some modifications. The discipline was spread mainly through the Inter-University League. From 1916 onwards, regular matches between the best universities in the West and the East, called the Rose Bowl, began. From 1920 the first league, today’s version of the NFL, was created. Since then, American football has been second only to baseball in popularity.
Football boomed after World War II, mainly in major industrial areas. Television broadcasts influenced its rapid development and popularity among both poor and rich fans. In 1967 the first Super Bowl was played for the first time, and three years later the merger of the NFL and AFL resulted in the creation of a professional league which still exists in the same form today.
Why is football so popular?
In the States, football is the number 1 sport next to baseball. It is played both professionally and amateur. Huge amounts of money are made on it. The bosses of NFL clubs rejoice at the enormous prestige of the citizens of certain states and are considered to be heroes. All this is due to the enormous sums of money being earned from football. Even the smaller clubs can boast of a good crowd at matches, which is the biggest of all sports disciplines in the world. The adrenaline and excitement associated with this game is incomparably greater than in the case of other sports.
Not only NFL games are popular, but also university matches. Some American university stadiums, e.g. in Michigan or Texas can hold as many as 100,000 spectators! So if you like sports it makes sense to use modern sports news sites and search there for the latest football news.