FOOTBALL POPULARITY Essay examples

Submitted By Tom-Griffin
Words: 952
Pages: 4

Thomas Griffin
Professor Jack Du Mez
October 27, 2011

When most people think of a worldwide sport that every country plays most people think of Soccer, or as it is known in most countries, futbol. For example, Manchester United and Barcelona are huge soccer clubs that receive attention from most of the world. The world cup soccer championship is called the world cup because teams all over the world compete against each other. A sport like soccer is able to have a championship including every continent because everyone around the world enjoys it, but another sport is starting to grow in and around the world, especially in Europe. That sport is what Americans call football. This sport has a similar name known across the world, but that is about all they have in common with each other. Football used to be only known in America, but with spiking interest, better media coverage, and well thought out marketing plans, football is rising fast in Europe, and other parts of the world.
Football, according to an article on Livestrong.com, Ranlyn Oaks reports that the American sport stems from a similar sport called rugby. He discusses the fact that Rugby was first introduced to Americans in the late 1800s when a Rugby College came over seas and taught the sport to a Canadian college called Mcgill. The NCAA, that wrote for sport-information.org, note that football slowly evolved from rugby as rugby was played more and more throughout different universities. They report that as college teams got together to compete against one another they would discuss the rules they wanted to play by. This means that their was never set rules to the game of football and the sport was played with trying new rules and the colleges slowly made rules that worked the best. According to the National Football League Encyclopedia the professional league was started in 1920 in Ohio. They also wrote that the extremely popular Super Bowl was started in 1967.
Football has always struggled in popularity through out Europe, however an article in the Wall Street Journal, written by Veronica Gulyas recognizes the growth in Hungary. Gulyas concurs that, “There is a long if somewhat tenuous connection between American football and Hungary, which from the 1950s through the 1970s provided talented U.S.-born Hungarians who became some of the NFL's top players.” She means is that not only Hungary but also other European countries have begun to follow American football when professional players are originally from their home country. Patriotism is the reason that football has continued to grow in Hungary in the last few decades. Gulyas explains that many men and women have started up intramural teams, but the football’s popularity will rapidly grow as more funding is produced for the intramural sports. She also supports the idea that more countries will grow to like football as long as a couple native players can become famous in the National Football League. Another reason that football has struggled in popularity is because rugby is more popular according to According to a sports writer Eddie Mannock. Mannock discusses how English people think football is not as manly as rugby. He notes that the English do not understand why they should watch a bunch of men all padded up tackling each other, compared to watching rugby be were the action is more steady and none of the players are wearing any protection. They also seem to believe that American football moves to slowly, and they think it is funny when fans become to amazed at moving a few yards. But Mannock points out that English fans have been steadily growing since the first exhibition game in the 1980s. He