The word football can mean many things, depending on where you are in the world. In North America it means gridiron football. The gridiron game, which takes its name from the distinctive line markings on the playing field, is a full contact game played primarily in the United States and Canada. It is known for violent collisions, high emotions, and spectacular athleticism. Gridiron football pits two teams against each other, each trying to move a ball into the other team’s goal.
The game evolved from rugby in the late 1800s, and similarities between the two sports remain. There are obvious differences in equipment and rules, but the most important difference—the one that really began to separate the two sports—is the forward pass, which has been a part of football since 1906 but remains illegal in rugby. The American version of football is played on other continents, but the game has not established itself as a global sport.
While baseball is traditionally regarded as America’s national pastime, football has been for some time the country’s most popular sport. It draws larger television audiences than does any other sport, and in parts of the country college games attract crowds that exceed 100,000. The championship game of professional football is the Super Bowl, which is the biggest annual American sports event.
Fans of the New Orleans Saints gather to cheer on their team during the 2007 NFC championship game. Football is an immensely popular sport in the United States. Chris Graythen/Getty Images
Football is a highly organized sport in the United States. It is played at youth, high school, college, and professional levels. Various forms of recreational football also are very popular.
Football inspires passion at every level, but nowhere is this more true than at high schools and colleges. At these levels, local teams are often an important part of the community.
The schools in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) are grouped into Divisions I, II, and III. Division I, which includes the major football powers, is further divided into two levels—I-A and I-AA. Most schools that meet Division I-A criteria belong to a conference made up of eight to 12 teams. Major I-A schools that are not in a conference are called independents.
In high school football, each state also has different conferences and divisions. All of the states hold championship tournaments in each division, and some states may have as many as eight divisions.
There is only one major professional league in the United States—the National Football League. However, the appetite for football in the United States is so great that rival professional leagues have been attempted, with mixed success. The professional Arena Football League plays an indoor version of football.
Recreational football has led to spin-off versions of the game that are less violent and can be played without pads and helmets. In touch football, the player with the ball is “tackled” simply by being touched by an opponent. Some teams play one-hand touch football and others play a two-handed version.
In flag football, all the players wear belts with plastic or cloth flags attached. The ballcarrier is considered stopped when an opponent grabs one of his or her flags. Flag football is somewhat more challenging than touch football and less open to disagreements about “tackling.”
Rather than tackling each other, flag football players try to pull strips of material from the belt of the player who has the ball. Shutterstock.com
Few sports in the world have benefited from the arrival of television as much as professional football. In the 1950s leaders of college football worried that television coverage of games would drastically reduce attendance, and the NCAA held a tight rein on the number of games that could be broadcast. The NFL, under the leadership of commissioner Bert Bell, quickly embraced the new technology. The 1958 NFL Championship game between the Baltimore Colts and New York Giants was an overtime thriller that captivated a large national audience and is widely considered the turning point in the fortunes of the NFL.
Bell was succeeded as league commissioner in 1960 by Pete Rozelle, who would oversee one of the largest growth periods experienced by any sport. Rozelle increased the NFL’s television revenues (television-generated income jumped from $350,000 per team in 1961 to $14 million per team in 1982) and established NFL Properties to manage the merchandising and marketing of the game. He also was responsible for the advent of Monday Night Football in 1970. The first regular primetime broadcast of a sporting event, Monday Night Football proved to be a major hit. As more games became available on television, interest in the sport grew.
Commentators (left to right) Ron Jaworski, Tony Kornheiser, and Mike Tirico of ESPN’s Monday Night Football in 2007. ESPN began broadcasting the long-running program in 2006. © AP Images
In the 1980s the NCAA changed its approach, making more college games available for broadcast on television. By the turn of the 21st century, college or pro football games aired daily from Thursday to Monday each week during the season. In 2003 the NFL launched its own 24-hour cable broadcast network.
Gridiron football in Canada is overshadowed by the national sport of ice hockey and has never attained the stature that the sport enjoys in the United States. Nonetheless, Canadian football enjoys a rich history. As in the United States, the game is played at youth, high school, college, and professional levels.
Canadian football began with rugby games organized by athletic clubs and university students in Quebec and Ontario as early as the 1860s. The first football associations were formed a decade later, but it was the Canadian Rugby Union (CRU), formed in 1891, that rose to prominence. The CRU became the umbrella organization for provincial and regional unions that followed. Concerns about the rising influence of professionalism in club play lead collegiate teams to form a separate organization in 1897.
Canadian football officials were not as quick to pursue the commercial prospects of the sport as their counterparts in the United States, and for decades the sport drew few spectators. Clearly there was a desire to protect the amateurism of the sport as well as to preserve the game as one markedly different from American football. However, the influence of the American game was hard to deflect, and the rugby-style Canadian game gradually became more and more “Americanized.”
A flag ceremony during a Canadian Football League (CFL) game. The CFL, which fielded eight teams in 2010, was formed by the merger of two rugby unions. Shutterstock.com
According to legend, the sport of rugby began one afternoon in 1823 at England’s Rugby School, when William Webb Ellis, playing soccer with his fellow students, picked up the ball and ran toward the goal. Though there is little historical fact to verify this story, it is true that the first rules of the game were written at the Rugby School in 1843.
The sport now thrives across the globe and is played by two different sets of rules—Rugby Union and Rugby League. Rugby is particularly popular in the British Isles, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and France.
An international rugby match between Wales and South Africa. Gallo Images/Getty Images
Football at the college level continues in Canada but not with the sort of money and media attention lavished on college football in the United States. The game is currently governed by Canadian Interuniversity Sport, formed in 2001. Since 1967, top teams have met in the annual Canadian College Bowl, with the winner receiving the Vanier Cup.
On the professional level, the Canadian Football League (CFL) began in 1956 as the Canadian Football Council. It adopted its current name in 1958. As of 2010, the CFL had eight teams, four in the East Division and four in the West. Division champions compete for the Grey Cup, which was named for Governor-General Earl Grey and first awarded in 1909. The CFL took over stewardship of the cup from the CRU in 1966. The Grey Cup championship has since become one of Canada’s most important sporting events.
