How come europeans don't do american football?

Hey don't get too offended! I don't really follow any sport - I just find the protective gear and stereotype quite funny. I wasn't exactly making a serious criticism of your culture of anything!

Edited by Count Belisarius - 15-Dec-2008 at 17:06

Originally posted by Count Belisarius Why don't people in europe (and any other non USA country for that matter) play american football? play nicely now I'm not trying to start a fight or anything I'm just curious as to how come people in europe don't do football, and if you would like to see an amercan style pro or college football league come to be or not?

Originally posted by pikeshot1600 I believe they do.  There is a league in Germany, and there is interest in US football in Britain.  I am not familiar with all of it, but I have read a few items about it.

I do have some itnerest in American football and yes there's a small league here though it will never become as popular as "real" football becuase football here dominates all sports. i've tried to regularly watch the Superbowl at last but the last one i've seen in full and live was Oakland Raiders vs Tampa Bay Bucaneers, can't even remember how long ago. the Superbowl taking place in the middle of the night over here doesn't help either.

Originally posted by Al Jassas and a guy like Manning gets 10s of millions of dollars for just throwing the ball. Believe me if I was 10 cm taller I would have become a star in this game and quit studying all toether.   Al-Jassas

Hello count

Originally posted by Count Belisarius No offense or anything but most americans think the same of soccer I mean you can't use your hands.

That's why everyone else calls it FOOTball. 

...How come you guys don't play football/soccer? Same difference - not inherent superiority between the games: just cultural diversity

I'm not as interested in the question of why people nowadays don't like American football or association football (as the case may be) as I am in how they came to have different sports traditions. That American football ever became popular in the US is something of a mystery to me - from what I understand, it was initially a game played by students at Yale and Princeton, not exactly a working-class sport, and you would think that therefore, its popularity seems unlikely in the US. But no! So I wonder.

If, knowing nothing about how things actually turned out, I had to make a guess what would become the most popular sport in the US, I would have guessed that the history would have resulted in the most popular sport being some sort of cross between Hurling and Lacrosse (both of which are probably far rougher than either Am. football or assoc. football!)

Edited by edgewaters - 15-Dec-2008 at 20:03

American Football became popular in the 70s, not that it wasn't before. With the rise of professional leagues football gained popularity. The Bears have a long history for example in Chicago professional sports. And I must say I am a Bears fan no matter how bad they do lately :). With the fusing of the leagues and the creation of the "Super Bowl" you get a really more hyped and mass marketed goal which definitely brought it into many more homes than before.

But baseball is still considered the American past time.

I do not personally hate it or any sort of thing and used to play it. I can get past the extra padding and all, just the numerous breaks and time outs are a bit much. Basketball has them, too, but the game progresses a bit faster due to the limited scope of the field.