What's the deal with FOOTBAL!!! ?

[scorptatious]

While I can't say that I'm a huge fan of football. I still enjoy watching it from time to time. Heck, my old man and I head down to Oakland to watch the Raiders play every season.

I guess it's really the time I get to spend alone with my dad that makes me like football. He really loves it and I enjoy getting to experience the games with him.

 

[Jadak]

Okay, not a thread about why "soccer" if football and "football" should be called something relse, but...

You American folks, what's the big deal about it? Having worked in sports TV production for a while, I'll admit I can appreciate the expertise of Brady's passes, or the power of Tebow's comebacks. There's more to the sport than just "Oh look, ball, let's all pile up on top of it!". I admit all that.

But, I don't get why it's such a "big" thing? To the point of a local TV blackout if NFL games aren't sold out 72 hours prior to kick-off[footnote]Source is wikipedia, so it might be wrong[/footnote]? Why is it that Super Bowl commercial airtime is measured with more zeroes than I'll ever see in my life?

In short? I get it, football may be more than just a bunch of thugs having it at each other, even if it does involve a lot of thuggery and thugs; but what's such a big deal about it?

As opposed to what? Most sports are no better, soccer is just kicking a ball around a field, hockey is just slapping a puck around the ice with a stick. Sports are not sophisticated things, generally, there is little sensible justification for why any particular sport becomes a huge deal anywhere.

As far as I'm concerned, which one ends up on top is strictly a matter of cultural background and proper business management / marketing of it. Football has the latter, and Americans don't really have anything going for the former, so it's just a matter of picking something that was simple to watch with a bit of violence.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

snip

You seem to be a bit confused on the blackouts. It's not like everything on local TV is blacked out if there aren't enough people in the stands. What happens is if a football game isn't sold out or very close to it, that game won't be shown on local TV. It's an NFL rule, and the idea is to encourage people to actually buy tickets instead of watching from home.

As for the rest of it? Search me. I've always been the type who completely gets why people like to /play/ sports, but can't fathom why you'd want to /watch/ other people play.

 

[GrimTuesday]

I love how people, especially Europeans sit there and look down their nose at the sport when they likely haven't seen more than a game a season and most of the time its just the Super Bowl, and even more likely have never actually played a game of football in their life. Football is fun to watch, sure the commercials are long, and far too numerous, but that's due to the commercialization of the sport. in a normal game, you get maybe 30 seconds in between plays and that's mostly for the officials to spot the ball and for the offense to call a play.

For those who call it handegg, fuck off. You're not clever, you're not funny, you're just an asshole who thinks its super funny to shit on other people's interests. You're not calling it handegg to differentiate it from soccer, but be be derisive and rude.

For those who want to bring up the fact that American Football players wear pads and Rugby players don't, I will tell you this, getting hit in football doesn't feel nice, in fact, it can really hurt. That's because if you look at how tackling is done in the different sports, you will see that rugby players lift the runner up and set them down as they tackle, similar to how a wrestler might shoot a double leg takedown. This means that they aren't actually slamming into them, but rather lifting them and taking them too the ground. In football, tackling is done by running through someone, there is no lifting, there is just contact, and without those pads, that leads to a lot of broken bones and other injuries.

 

[KINGBeerZ]

I really have never seen the appeal in watching sport, here in Australia though we don't have American style football and we have very little European football. We instead have two games both of which I find intollerably boring called AFL and NRL, i cannot tell the difference but s lot of people can and they get mad if you call them the same thing ( Which they pretty much are).
Still if i have to play some sort of football it would always be soccer because it requires a lot of skill more energy and is just more enjoyable to play because it focuses a lot on teamwork.

But i would still rather play Warhammer 40k than any sport, it uses your thinking brain more.

 

[Twilight_guy]

What's the deal with Football everywhere else in the world? Why is it so big outside of America? It's just a bunch of guys kicking a ball around. That's dumb. What's the deal?

If that question seems probing and dumb, then you understand how your question makes me feel. Americas have different tastes and like American football. That's just the way it is. Opinions, man, people have them!

 

[SycoMantis91]

I'll admit to being a sports obsessive. I absolutely love football. Though I can definitely see why one wouldn't enjoy it. No one who loves football could convince non-fans it's worth watching (unless they just hate it because it's popular) and no soccer fan could do the same with non-fans or most football fans.

 

[LooK iTz Jinjo]

I really have never seen the appeal in watching sport, here in Australia though we don't have American style football and we have very little European football. We instead have two games both of which I find intollerably boring called AFL and NRL, i cannot tell the difference but s lot of people can and they get mad if you call them the same thing ( Which they pretty much are).
Still if i have to play some sort of football it would always be soccer because it requires a lot of skill more energy and is just more enjoyable to play because it focuses a lot on teamwork.

But i would still rather play Warhammer 40k than any sport, it uses your thinking brain more.

I don't want to be rude, but if you can't tell the difference between Australian Rules Football and a variation of Rugby, you need to get your eyes checked. They use a different ball, play on a different shaped and different sized ground. It is quite literally like comparing Halo to Skyrim.

 

[Angie7F]

I like to watch huge bulky guys run into each other so i enjoy watching football, rugby, aussie foot ball, and mixed marshal arts.
I also enjoy football more than some of the sports listed above because they have cheer leaders.

I dont understand the rules at all, but i still enjoy watching it.

I fate soccer though. I also dislike baseball.

 

[Combustion Kevin]

just bad luck, it is only by sheer coincidance that they chose this to be the nationally defining sport.

you know, instead of simulated medieval combat, which would be BADASS!

 

[Lonely Swordsman]

Football isn't so bad. It may not be as tactically complex and dynamic as soccer, or hockey, or basketball but it's still fun to watch giant men wrapped in armor made of cushions to charge into eachother at high speeds.
The one American sport I really can't wrap my head around is baseball. It is literally just 22 people standing in designated spots on a huge, empty field and occasionally a tiny near invisible ball gets tossed around and aribtrarily decides where the players are allowed to move to. It's like a real life enactment of some obscure 70s boardgame.
Even the low end playground versions like softball or kickball are more interesting.

 

[JochemHippie]

I'm still kinda puzzled as for why it's even called that.. involving nor a ball nor your feet.

Other then that it's just another sport, only this one involves less skill and mostly just weighing a lot and being athletic.

 

[Signa]

I think you're asking the wrong crowd. I fucking despise sports. I'd be completely neutral on them if it wasn't for the marketing and the fans that surround them. People have riots when their team loses. Some of these fans are so dedicated to a few people they've never even talked to that they will vandalize their city and uproot society just to express their displeasure over a game. Just fucking disgusting!!

 

[Vegosiux]

snip

You seem to be a bit confused on the blackouts. It's not like everything on local TV is blacked out if there aren't enough people in the stands. What happens is if a football game isn't sold out or very close to it, that game won't be shown on local TV. It's an NFL rule, and the idea is to encourage people to actually buy tickets instead of watching from home.

Oh no no, that's exactly what I meant, actually, didn't think the entire thing gets shut down. I suppose this falls down to the "marketing" department, huh?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

snip

You seem to be a bit confused on the blackouts. It's not like everything on local TV is blacked out if there aren't enough people in the stands. What happens is if a football game isn't sold out or very close to it, that game won't be shown on local TV. It's an NFL rule, and the idea is to encourage people to actually buy tickets instead of watching from home.

Oh no no, that's exactly what I meant, actually, didn't think the entire thing gets shut down. I suppose this falls down to the "marketing" department, huh?

Yeah. It actually makes a certain amount of sense, although sometimes it's not the best idea. For example, my home team, the Bucs, had to black out every home game last season because of that rule. They're not exactly the best team in the league, but tickets are still expensive despite that and the down economy. This year they actually talked the league into relaxing the blackout rule a little bit because literally, they did not have a single home game on local TV last year, and under the regular rule they probably wouldn't this year, either. I guess they realized they were losing a lot of publicity and it still wasn't getting anyone to buy tickets.

 

[repeating integers]

I think you're asking the wrong crowd. I fucking despise sports. I'd be completely neutral on them if it wasn't for the marketing and the fans that surround them. People have riots when their team loses. Some of these fans are so dedicated to a few people they've never even talked to that they will vandalize their city and uproot society just to express their displeasure over a game. Just fucking disgusting!!

Yeah, this right here has always confused me. How can you get so violent over something so inconsequential? Over here on the web, the worst we manage is heated arguments.

 

[MPerce]

Uh oh. This thread needs a Southerner to explain our bizarre football fanaticism. I'll give it a shot.

If you grew up in the South, chances are football (especially college football) was a major part of your upbringing. You either played it every chance you got, or you were scrawny like me and had to settle with obsessing over the strategies and tactics of the game while playing touch football. If you're talking to someone and you run out of stuff to say, you talk about either football or the weather. And your college team's success or failure on the field will determine if you have a good week or not (if it's a game against your in-state rival, it determines your entire year.
Point is...it's a part of our culture, and culture is something we hold very dear to our hearts. It often doesn't make sense to get so upset over a game that you end up crying in the stands with 50,000 other people, or so happy for these players you've never met before that you scream yourself hoarse. But it brings the whole state together every Saturday, and there's nothing quite like it.

That's not a full explanation, but it would take a very well thought out essay to cover every single reason why people love football. But that's my own experience with the sport.

 

[Brutal Peanut]

I don't know. I don't like watching most sports and I don't like to talk to people who invest too much time, energy, and emotions into sports they don't play, or will ever play. A friend of my family has 'California' state pride and thinks anyone from a state who doesn't support the state team is a 'traitor'. Absolutely pathetic.

 

[Lunar Templar]

oh .... your not from the states .... this explains so very much.

partly, school pride, starting at the high school level going up through college and into the pros, partly its a national pass time

and mostly the country as a whole not giving two shits about soccer. we're a Base Ball, Foot Ball people, get over it, or ya know, try actually watching more then one game a year.

also, soccer is REALLY BORING to watch like golf

snip

that a mix of old Seattle Mariners and Dallas Cowboys you got going on there?