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You would think hockey would be more popular than soccer, but apparently people enjoy playing outside in the scorching sun (unless it is an indoor soccer league).
American football is definitely the most popular sport in the U.S. As for reasons why, I 'm not too sure as I personally prefer basketball. Baseball is too long and boring with lots of stops and waiting. Americans prefer more contact, more physicality.
Yeah there are TV commercial breaks between possessions. And there are other delays during the game, for example if a pass is dropped then the clock stops until the next play.
There are 60 minutes of playing time, actual time generally 3-3.5 hours.
There was an article in the Wall Street Journal that timed all the real "action" in typical NFL games. It's about 11 minutes. That's right, of the 60-minute "playing time," and the three-hour "broadcast time," 11 minutes is the real game.
http://tinyurl.com/o3o865x
"So what do the networks do with the other 174 minutes in a typical broadcast? Not surprisingly, commercials take up about an hour. As many as 75 minutes, or about 60% of the total air time, excluding commercials, is spent on shots of players huddling, standing at the line of scrimmage or just generally milling about between snaps. In the four broadcasts The Journal studied, injured players got six more seconds of camera time than celebrating players. While the network announcers showed up on screen for just 30 seconds, shots of the head coaches and referees took up about 7% of the average show."
That article changed our Sundays! We have a DVR, and we record the games we care about. We fast forward through everything that's irrelevant to the game outcome. We watch a typical football game in about half an hour (and that's because sometimes we have to rewind since we fast-forwarded too far).
I don't know how to quote two posts in one reply, but to whoever said most American football players would have a heart attack if they played soccer -- you're probably right! Most of them probably couldn't last a full rugby game, either.
As an American raised on American football and baseball, I'd have to say the most popular game to watch is American football. Because it is tailor made for TV with all the stops, timeouts, etc. Give plenty of time for commercials, for reshowing the same play five or six times while the teams huddle so the announcers and fans can argue about the ref, the players, the coaches, and how much better they would have done if they had been the coach, the quarterback, the receiver, etc, all while eating and drinking beer.
Soccer on the other hand is constant action with little opportunity for commercials, and you can't spend a lot of time arguing the last play because the next is happening right now.
On the other hand, probably the biggest games to actually play for adults is slow pitch softball because it combines the style of baseball without the need for highly skilled pitchers -- it's more about the players in the field than the pitcher. And for kids is very likely soccer because they are moving, there's constant action that keeps them involved, and they don't have to be 250 pounds in order to play.
As far as athleticism, each sport used different types so you really can't compare one to the other. When DD attended training camp for HS soccer, they put GPS on some of the girls. They were averaging between 15-20 miles a day running, and about 5-7 miles per game. So the football lineman could probably break a soccer striker in half, but they'd die of a heart attack before they could catch 'em.
FOOTBALL, but only if the Patriots are playing! GO PATS!! I <3 Brady!
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