...there is no game in the world that can unite people and excite passion like football does. Even Americans are beginning to realise that now.
One would have thought they would have noticed it during the '94 world cup on home turf.
But baseball, American football, basketball & hockey rule the roost. Why is that ?
My guess is they can all be interrupted at regular short intervals by corporate advertising. Try doing that with footie and you lose the flow. This is the biggest obstacle to football getting traction in the US. No ads, no money, no media interest. Why limit ad revenue to player's jerseys only when you can have much more. And for an international tournament you dont even have that. Football can't compete on these terms with the american ones.
The exception here is that the US won the women's world cup. So if the women like it i suppose the men will follow
They do play a lot as kids, but as adults, the money is in the other american games.
The other differences are (that i can tell), in no American Game will a team be penalised by playing one (or more) player/s down (as a result of a red card). If a player gets sent off, there is a sub waiting on the benches. In American football there are lots more subs due to the dangerous nature of that game.
The closest one can come to football passion is ice-hockey, the players tend to beat each other up rather than the fans
Ona side note i could never understand why the Americans call their version of the game football, they handle the ball with their hands, push & shove and then kick. Football is played with one's feet, foot and ball, no hands allowed (cept for the out) that's why they call it football.
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* hit_ny starts a little flame fest LOL)