I have just read this article, and read a few of the responces. I don't normally read digg so I do not have an account. However I need to make this point for the sake of my sanity. Plus I think there could be some good sporting debate having been on this forum for over a year...
Anyway.
People generally said the normal reasons for why US football will not be popular over this side of the ocean.
The two reasons were mainly:
1) "the stopping and starting of player."
2) "the padding worn and the fact there are 50 players on a team"
Ok. Fair enough. That is an okay thing to say. But can I get to the real reasons, or at least explain them in slightly more detail - in my perspective - a 15 year old year 11/ 10th grader.
Right, the stopping and starting of play:
In America, having lived there for 6 months and spent a lot of time there with my grandparents, I have seen the amount of advertising that goes on in shows. Especially sports.
I know for a fact that nobody likes it, but in the US it is far more tolerated than in the UK. Over here we have the BBC which contains no adverts (that aren't advertising their other shows) and then we have sky channels, which normally have adverts before, one 2/3 min during and one after.
Sky sports, when it shows American football, especially the super bowl, puts in adverts at the same time as ESPN does. I remember watching last years with some mates, all of us play lots of sport, and love sport, but we just couldn't get into the game, NOT because of the stopping and starting, but because of the ADVERTISING.
The advertising is a huge reason to why British people WILL never get into American Football. Look at our other sports. They are either on the BBC or have adverts at halftime. Look at F1, before Lewis Hamilton hardly anybody watched the whole race, why? Because of the adverts. We cant stand adverts!!!
In America, kids are brought up on them. The shows have advert after advert after advert. So the kids know nothing better. We have BBC shows, they have no advertising, we have sky shows, with little advertising, and if you look at the future of interest in American football, it can't happen!
Children and teenagers who have been brought up with the luxury of little advertisment, and sports like Football (soccer) and rugby, cricket. The adverts are only at half time, and the games flow. You can get into it. Cricket, the adverts happen when they can. Not every 5 minutes.
You can't expect men, women, children, cats, dogs, ANYONE, to stop even stir from the leading british sports with no advertising to watching a game of American football in which half the time you spend looking at new beers from Budweiser.
So that's one reason I can think of as a British kid. But I think that's only the spectator side of it. To have a sport being taken seriously, the public have to know what's going on. And to know what's going on, they have to play it.
Our classic sports are sewn into us. Look at rugby, football, tennis, cricket. Most people have some ideas of the rules, the ones living in the UK anyway.
Why doesn't Rugby League compete with Union in the way anybody would know the rules would think it should? Because people in the south don't play it.
So moving onto the core reason why American football will NEVER be big.
Sport at British schools isn't anywhere near the level it is in America. That's fact. That's the thing. Most schools in Britain find it a push playing any more sport than rugby in the Autumn, football in the winter, and tennis and cricket during the spring/summer. And that's pushing it. Football is basically played all year round.
Now here's what I believe to be the killer point...
Kids do not want to start playing a sport that involves wearing padding and involves more than 20 players. It's a fact. We don't start playing cricket with wooden bats and padding untill we've been through at least 5 years of plastic quik cricket, which is immense fun, and it flows. Finding sports teams for schools in most UK schools is hard to do. If we are talking about quality and commitment. In america it works. You have had years of history with American football, it fits into your routines. Now look at the UK school's priority of sport again...
Where, in God's name, are you going to find PE teachers fitting a full contact, padded sport, with (on average) 2 PE lessons a week, including the fat kids and the ones who don't care? Where are schools with sporting budgets going to fit in American football. And where are they going to get the teachers to train the kids in an enjoyable manner so they can actually be bothered to make an effort. Think about it. If you don't know how to play it, and you are just getting battered around in heavy pads, with no big stars playing on TV (to your knowledge)to look up to, and other contact sports like Rugby (which flows and doesn't take ages to set up), a kid is going to go elsewhere.
We cannot see what the fuss is about with American football. We have had soccer teams running since the early 19th century at a good level, and it's part of our blood. As is tennis, rugby and cricket. Intergrating American Football, with no specialists, or motivation to paly it, will never happen. It can't. It's nobody's fault, it's over 200 years of history.
On the other hand. Soccer, as you call it, has a chance in the US. This is because school kids up untill about age 13 play it. And it is even played in collages. It is easy to set up. Easy to play, and easy to coach.
So there are my views. That went on for a while. Phew.
Anyway. Any opinions?
Anyway.
People generally said the normal reasons for why US football will not be popular over this side of the ocean.
The two reasons were mainly:
1) "the stopping and starting of player."
2) "the padding worn and the fact there are 50 players on a team"
Ok. Fair enough. That is an okay thing to say. But can I get to the real reasons, or at least explain them in slightly more detail - in my perspective - a 15 year old year 11/ 10th grader.
Right, the stopping and starting of play:
In America, having lived there for 6 months and spent a lot of time there with my grandparents, I have seen the amount of advertising that goes on in shows. Especially sports.
I know for a fact that nobody likes it, but in the US it is far more tolerated than in the UK. Over here we have the BBC which contains no adverts (that aren't advertising their other shows) and then we have sky channels, which normally have adverts before, one 2/3 min during and one after.
Sky sports, when it shows American football, especially the super bowl, puts in adverts at the same time as ESPN does. I remember watching last years with some mates, all of us play lots of sport, and love sport, but we just couldn't get into the game, NOT because of the stopping and starting, but because of the ADVERTISING.
The advertising is a huge reason to why British people WILL never get into American Football. Look at our other sports. They are either on the BBC or have adverts at halftime. Look at F1, before Lewis Hamilton hardly anybody watched the whole race, why? Because of the adverts. We cant stand adverts!!!
In America, kids are brought up on them. The shows have advert after advert after advert. So the kids know nothing better. We have BBC shows, they have no advertising, we have sky shows, with little advertising, and if you look at the future of interest in American football, it can't happen!
Children and teenagers who have been brought up with the luxury of little advertisment, and sports like Football (soccer) and rugby, cricket. The adverts are only at half time, and the games flow. You can get into it. Cricket, the adverts happen when they can. Not every 5 minutes.
You can't expect men, women, children, cats, dogs, ANYONE, to stop even stir from the leading british sports with no advertising to watching a game of American football in which half the time you spend looking at new beers from Budweiser.
So that's one reason I can think of as a British kid. But I think that's only the spectator side of it. To have a sport being taken seriously, the public have to know what's going on. And to know what's going on, they have to play it.
Our classic sports are sewn into us. Look at rugby, football, tennis, cricket. Most people have some ideas of the rules, the ones living in the UK anyway.
Why doesn't Rugby League compete with Union in the way anybody would know the rules would think it should? Because people in the south don't play it.
So moving onto the core reason why American football will NEVER be big.
Sport at British schools isn't anywhere near the level it is in America. That's fact. That's the thing. Most schools in Britain find it a push playing any more sport than rugby in the Autumn, football in the winter, and tennis and cricket during the spring/summer. And that's pushing it. Football is basically played all year round.
Now here's what I believe to be the killer point...
Kids do not want to start playing a sport that involves wearing padding and involves more than 20 players. It's a fact. We don't start playing cricket with wooden bats and padding untill we've been through at least 5 years of plastic quik cricket, which is immense fun, and it flows. Finding sports teams for schools in most UK schools is hard to do. If we are talking about quality and commitment. In america it works. You have had years of history with American football, it fits into your routines. Now look at the UK school's priority of sport again...
Where, in God's name, are you going to find PE teachers fitting a full contact, padded sport, with (on average) 2 PE lessons a week, including the fat kids and the ones who don't care? Where are schools with sporting budgets going to fit in American football. And where are they going to get the teachers to train the kids in an enjoyable manner so they can actually be bothered to make an effort. Think about it. If you don't know how to play it, and you are just getting battered around in heavy pads, with no big stars playing on TV (to your knowledge)to look up to, and other contact sports like Rugby (which flows and doesn't take ages to set up), a kid is going to go elsewhere.
We cannot see what the fuss is about with American football. We have had soccer teams running since the early 19th century at a good level, and it's part of our blood. As is tennis, rugby and cricket. Intergrating American Football, with no specialists, or motivation to paly it, will never happen. It can't. It's nobody's fault, it's over 200 years of history.
On the other hand. Soccer, as you call it, has a chance in the US. This is because school kids up untill about age 13 play it. And it is even played in collages. It is easy to set up. Easy to play, and easy to coach.
So there are my views. That went on for a while. Phew.
Anyway. Any opinions?
