Talk:American football

What is meant by "historically known as Gridiron Football"? The only place I know of where it's called that is in Australia.

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Most popular sport? I presume you mean "spectator sport", but in terms of attendances? TV ratings?

Oh, and I understand there's no amateur football competitions for adults outside of colleges. Is that so? --Robert Merkel

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This would require actual research :-), but "most popular" in terms of polls of sports fans as to which sport is their favorite (usually phrased as "spectator sport"; I think golf typically registers as the most popular participant sport).

As for amateur adult football, usually this takes the form of touch or flag football. (That might be worth writing about.) -- RjLesch

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This is the most "outsider" article I've ever read on football. It sounds like it was written by a Belgian who had attended several British lectures on the history and development of the game, but had never actually seen it played. The words "violence", "collision", "intimidation", and "war" appear nowhere in the article. "Block" and "tackle" each appear precisely once, nowhere near the dainty discussion of the "scrimmage".

I'm the most casual of football fans, but I sure hope some other hands put some meat on these bones.

Just because it isn't organized like Unamerican Football is no reason for this most peculiar non-sequitur:

American football is not a participant sport - there are no organised amateur club competitions.

It is certainly a participant sport. Children start playing organized football at age 13. I played junior-high football, and if you saw my flimsy weak body in my ridiculous uniform, amateur is exactly the word that would have sprung to your lips, assuming you weren't politely stifling a laugh. There are millions of children and adults playing football. There are more than 350,000 high-schoolers playing football in Texas alone.

Besides, there is an intramural club football league at MIT and I believe other colleges and universities, not to mention so-called semi-pro leagues where players get a uniform, three beers, and $10 for bashing each other for four quarters. There are even women's amateur and semi-pro teams.

There are quite a few markup problems in the article as well, and no x-ref to Canadian football, where that same "number 3 rugby ball" will also be found.

Ortolan88 19:40 Jul 28, 2002 (PDT)

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Is football really the most popular spectator sport? What about horseracing and NASCAR? -- Zoe

That's a good question. Maybe it depends on how you define it. My guess is that, in terms of the number of people who are actively interested in the games, football is the most popular, but I have no data to back that up, so perhaps I am wrong. I don't think total attendance is a fair comparison, since attendance at a sporting event isn't necessarily reflective of how many people are interested in the sport (by watching games on TV, reading sports articles about it, etc.) Horse racing might have higher total attendance then football (I don't know if it does or not), but it is an all-year sport and the same (small, I think) number of people go to the track. As for NASCAR, its popularity (I think) tends to be focused in the South. Again, I think more people follow football actively than NASCAR. But I have no data to back myself up on that assertion. soulpatch