Why American's Love NFL Football and dislike Soccer.

Tampa's stadium was placed in a horrible location. In fact, they are now belly aching about the stadium that has hosted 4 Super Bowl games. If you hate the Bucs, think how I feel. They did not play this weekend and quite frankly, I did not care if they did. I watched the Carolina Panthers shock Seattle in this weekend's game. I lived in Charlotte for 4 years and I know what real fans look like and they are in the Carolinas. They are not here. Like I said, we have some awesome beaches. They say we are a "sports town" and I just shrug.

 

I don't hate the Buc's.

I hate what the owners of the Buc's have done.

I in the past used to root for the Buc's as they were such an Underdog Team like the Patriots once were.

Your right about where they put that stadium but it is a nice stadium as far as looks and I love the new logo and uniforms.

It's a shame what the Buc's ownership has done because if they were smart like Patriots owner Bob Kraft....and dedicated themselves to having a winning Buc's Team it would help them in other aspects of their businesses.

People in New England will do just about ANYTHING for the Kraft Family as they understood that if you do your best for the Team and the Fan's the money will just FLOW.

And boy has it!

AboveAlpha...p.s....Plus Bob Kraft and his Family is ALWAYS looking for more new and exciting things for the fans.

 

Flopping is embarrassing and I have said that already.

But soccer generates far more revenue than does gridiron. By the way, India Premier League cricket generates higher salaries for its players than does MLB.




I went to a Division III soccer match this afternoon and it was fun as well as physical. Our side won the game, too. Best still - it was for free.

 

Soccer as a whole as in many leagues.

But there does not exist a single Soccer League that generates as much money as the NFL.

Near where I live there is a Pro Soccer Team that won a National Championship a while back and they get very good crowds.

AboveAlpha

 

My observations....American Football goes from intense to no action at all predicated upon a time clock. There is only so much time in which to get plays accomplished then, you lose the ball to the other team. It requires expert management of time as well as well-planned and executed strategy to win. Aside from that, you have grown men hurling themselves at each other trying to do as much damage (within the rules) as possible to each other. Football fans typically don't quarrel or cause trouble when their team loses because the nature of the game is to raise, then decompress angst.

Soccer is more of a free-for-all with a 'no touch' & 'no hands' policy. Soccer is played with the body, mainly the feet but anything really except the hands. Fancy ball handling and expert spur of the moment plays take place almost every second and the ball can change hands with one kick. Soccer is frenetic and keeps fans on the edge of their seats for long periods of time with no relief. There is no time for decompression of angst. I think this is why soccer fans get so edgy and sometimes come unglued and riot.

Both are exciting games but for different reasons.

 

Well, it's the USA with its huge economy - therefore, no surprise.

 

You very well could be right!!

I agree that too many missed opportunities to score a goal builds up frustration in fans as this happens in Hockey as well but there tends to be a bit more scoring in hockey.

Most Hockey games are 3-2....5-3....most Soccer games are 1-0....2-1.

Football Games are usually 27-21....35-24.

AboveAlpha

 

Like I said, we have Vinik with the Lightning. He is a decent person and has wide appeal in the Tampa Bay market. You can do what you like to make the teams more marketable here, our problems lie with the fact that we have people from all over here. Don't get me wrong, I love our away fans, but I get tired of them dominating our games. I love to live and work in Tampa Bay and I believe there is true community here, but it stops when it comes to sports, religion, and politics. We are a melting pot of people here. You just don't know where their alliances are and it can be like walking blind folded on a deep, jagged cliff. You have to be careful what you say and to whom.

 

The Patriots are a Team from the old AFL and were incorporated back in 1960.

Previous to 1960 there was no NFL Team in New England and a lot of New Englanders who were Pro Football Fans would root for the New York Giants.

Now as a lifetime fan of the Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics....all storied franchises as I don't think I need to tell you about the story of how the Red Sox had already won several World Series and had their best player in Babe Ruth who also was a PHENOMENAL PITCHER.

The Boston Bruins are one of the original Teams in the NFL.

And the Boston Celtics have won more NBA Championships than any other NBA Team.

So growing up in New England one tends to HATE NEW YORK TEAMS!!!

Which made it all the more frustrating when watching New York Giants fans in New England.

So I kind of get what you mean.

AboveAlpha

 

I would LOVE to see a game between the Rugby players and the American football players. . .without their equipments!

And then you could tell me how "American football" is the smartest and the strongest game on earth!
Why do you think it isn't played outside the US?

Soccer is a much more active game, and Rugby is a much more courageous game, as players are not hidden behind huge amounts of "protective" gear!

 

First of all have you ever seen the size of NFL Players?

Listen....I LIKE Rugby and I have played it and enjoy watching it on TV.

But Rugby does not have the same style of play as NFL Football and Rugby players although tough are nowhere near as physically strong, large and as fast as those NFL Players who are not Offensive or Defensive Lineman.

The typical Aussie Rugby Player is between 5 foot 10 and 6 foot 2 with a few taller and weighing in between 160 to 200 lbs.

The AVERAGE NFL Football Player is on AVERAGE 6 foot 4 inches tall and 240 lbs and can run the 40 yard dash in 4.8 seconds.

Linebackers are usually 6 foot 4 to 6 foot 6 inches weighing in at 250 to 280 lbs of pure muscle.

Defensive Lineman are 6 foot 5 to 6 foot 8 inches and weigh 280 to 340 lbs of muscle and can bench press 400 to 580 lbs.

Offensive Lineman are 6 foot 5 inches to 6 foot 8 inches and weigh 300 to 400 lbs and some can bench press well over 500 to 600 lbs.

Tight Ends like Patriots #87 Rob Gronkowski known as GRONK and Patriots #88 Chandler are 6 foot 6 inches and weigh about 240-250 lbs and have BLINDING SPEED and can lift over 300 lbs.

These players are both blockers and receivers.

You put these guy's in any game against your average Rugby Player and those Rugby Players are going to get HURT!!

This is WHY Football Players WEAR PADS!!

Unlike Rugby an NFL Football Player must attack and tackle the other teams players as well as take hits themselves.

I used to play both Rugby and Football and I can tell you right now that some of the HITS I have personally taken on the Football Field would have KILLED a soccer player.

NFL Players wear pads to prevent players FROM KILLING ONE ANOTHER!!!

Rugby has nowhere NEAR the level of violent impacts player to player that a Football Game Players have and give.

AboveAlpha

 

I believe that the huge frame of most of those AMERICAN football players would actually be a disadvantage if they were to play against those smaller, but extremely fit and quick rugby players. . .IF the American players had to play without their over size equipment!

How much lower would the violent impacts be if those football game players had to play without equipment? I would love to see it!

 

These NFL Players grew up playing Football without PADS just like I did.

We would have a once a week Football Game on Sundays either before or after the Patriots game and as I grew up in rural Western Massachusetts we had big fields of grass to play in.

We would play the guys on our street...which was a street that was about 2 miles long against the guys on another street near ours.

EVERY SUNDAY the Ambulance from the local Fire Department would have to come down during our game to pick up some kid who had either broken an arm, leg, shoulder, wrist, ribs....etc.

On several occasions the Ambulance had to come down twice in the same day and the day it came down 3 times in one morning the local Police Chief called all our parents and told them to have us either start wearing PADS or stop the games.

I played Quarterback and Tight End in High School as well I was a Goal Tender for our High School Soccer Team.

Playing both sports sometimes conflicted and each coach asked me to quit the other team but I refused and I even played both as a defenseman and goalie in Hockey.

I also played Baseball as a Pitcher as I have an extremely strong arm and I am one HELL of a Tennis Player.

So I basically KNOW what it takes to play all sports and I played Rugby on both an INTRAMURAL Team and as I sometimes go to Australia and have had Aussie SAS as members of my Team I have played Rugby in Australia with those guys for fun.

I am 6 foot 2 inches and 238 lbs. of solid muscle.

I RUN not jog 6 miles one day and 11 miles the next every day and I run at least one or two 20 km's a month.

I also swim 1 mile 2 times a week and I am a Master Diver with over 100 Wreck Dives all over the world to my credit.

I weight train and I lift specific to building MUSCLE DENSITY not mass as I need to remain flexible thus unlike Body Builders who lift light weights 100's of times I lift the absolute heaviest weight I can lift at least 6 to 8 times for every muscle group and divide workouts between specific different muscle groups and lift every other day.

I use a form of MUSCLE CONFUSION METHOD in lifting and training and I am an expert in a number of different forms of Martial Arts.

Because of this I am well above average in strength, speed and agility and reflex actions.

I can tell you right now that if you were to have Rugby Players up against NFL Players in a scrum the Rugby Players would end up flat on their A$$E$ and the speed and strength of NFL Players would overcome a lack of experience playing Rugby.

If Rugby Players were to play Football against NFL Players....they would get seriously injured.

AboveAlpha

 

Sorry for delay, but I was following soccer championship ...

About soccer being a game for girls, who cares? Italians tend to think that baseball is a game for persons with some mind problems ... [in a scale about boring sports, baseball is second only to cricket!!!].

A part cultural orientation and conditioning, American Football can find a market in Europe [and not only for Americans in London!] only catching that particular European mood about non-stop action.

I repeat this: the main trouble of American Football for European market is that players are almost always firm [!!!]. And noting that many of them are not exactly well fit, but quite fat, Europeans wonder about their level of training and how much they eat once the season is ended [double !!!!].

So, to conquer European market, American Football should ...

* force player to follow a strict diet, also during the post season, keeping themselves well fit. No more fat players on the playground, please!
* reduce to the minimum the pauses during the matches [this would make the matches less long, btw, from EU perspective a match should last no more than 2 hours]
* favor the runners [European love rugby matches where players are able to run the ball ...], reducing the density of the defensive line

But these changes would not allow American Football to conquer the EU market. As we all know very well, a sport conquers a country only starting from the schools. Here children play soccer, basketball, handball, volley ... but not American Football.

Why? Because it's an expensive sport in comparison with soccer. To begin to play soccer you need a cheap ball and that's all. A courtyard with some backpacks to sign the limits of the goal posts are enough to play. In this basketball is advantaged here [in fact we play basketball at a good level].

 

You have to understand that NFL Football Players are SPECIALIZED in the same way that Chess Pieces are specialized.

The NFL Players you are saying are..."NOT FIT".....are specialized players used for the purpose of PASS PROTECTION and are known as OFFENSIVE LINEMAN.

Offensive Lineman are relatively similar to SUMO WRESTLERS in that a Football Team needs large, tall, heavy and incredibly strong men surrounding the Quarterback to prevent other very large, tall, strong and incredibly fast defensive players from attacking and sacking the Quarterback.

Offensive Linemen are usually in the 6 foot 5 to 6 foot 8 inch and 400 lbs plus range and capable of lifting extremely heavy amounts of weight.

Their added personal weight does not allow them to be easily moved and this is important to give a Quarterback time to find a receiver to throw to or to push apart the Defensive Line to allow a Runner to advance.

You cannot get as good of Pass Protection if you were using lighter men thus Offensive Linemen as a very specialized and specific player.

But the rest of NFL Players are lightning fast and strong in the extreme.

Many NFL Receivers were at one time Olympic Track Stars who are the fastest men on the planet.

Unlike Soccer or Rugby which is played in a manner that a player conserves energy and paces themselves through out the game.....Football Players are exerting themselves at 100% Energy Consumption on each and every single play and this requires a certain amount of physical rest between plays.

It is not possible for an NFL Player to play at 100% capacity without play stoppage.

As well the time between plays is necessary to set up the next play as a football team must line up and actually VERBALLY INFORM the referee on some plays that specific team members are pass eligible.

Given the extreme complexity of the game the current amount of time allowed between plays is necessary.

AboveAlpha

 

By the way there was a very good NFL Game played today in London between the Miami Dolphin's and the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The Jag's won after first going ahead by several TD's on the Dolphins but the Dolphins came back to take the lead but with only a minute left the Jag's scored to ultimately win the game.

The crowd in London went CRAZY as it was an extremely exciting game and there are a large number of NFL Fan's in London especially U.K. Patriots fan's.

London want's an NFL Franchise and so does Berlin and Mexico.

This last Super Bowl the German Press was everywhere as the first German NFL Player....Sebastian Volmer who is an Offensive Lineman for the Patriots won a Super Bowl ring.

AboveAlpha

 

I know this, if we want to be technical, I followed NFL and the dynamics of the action is not so odd for me. It's the balance between having time to launch the ball and keeping the "Pocket" enough closed to protect the quarterback. If he has to launch he will stay [usually] far from the defensive line forcing the pocket to be more elastic [and offering the sides to the external attempts to sack him]. But this will, on the other hand, force the defense to keep defenders in the deep field ... since the receivers will run fast ...

When the quarterback, on the other hand, decides to give the ball to the running back [or to an other player to run], there are two main options ... to attack the defensive line or to dodge it [if I remember well, there is also the possibility of a short passage to the Tight End], making the player run aside.

The last action is the most "interesting" [in my opinion].

This said, it's evident that the clash of the offensive and the defensive lines requires "heavy" players [also fat!], but this stops the action. on the other hand, light lines would risk to give a short time to the quarterback to launch or to pass, forcing American Football to become more similar to Rugby [the quarterback would release immediately the ball to a near player, often renouncing to launch to the receivers in the deep field].

But not if you change the rules ... clear, it would mean to make American Football something different, but if you say that the defensive line can be composed only by 4 players [substantially without the so called Middle Linebacker] and the offensive line can be composed up to 7 players ... you will have more long actions.

This is at the end the problem ... with the pauses, there is the short time that actions take.

 

Yes, as I was mentioning, in UK [a country with a historical Rugby culture] the oval ball meets a certain success [also in the form of American Football]. But pay attention, the event in London is a matter, the British interest for American Football is a well different matter ... also WWE is meeting a certain success in Italy, but Italians still prefer to practice boxing to US Wrestling ...

I know in UK there is an American Football Championship [like in Italy, after all]. It seems that London Warriors are invincible ...

 

Well right now the ACTION during an NFL Game is pretty exciting.

There is a good amount of scoring and games start at 1 PM and end at around 4:15 to 4:30....thus 3 1/2 Hours.

A 3 1/2 Hour Football Game is exactly the necessary time to allow Fan's to make a day of it and allow the proper amount of rest between plays and advertisement as the NFL cannot bite the hands that feed it as Multi-Billion Dollar Network TV Deals make it necessary for there to be a certain number of commercials during a game.

Most NFL Fans find the commercial time breaks something that allows them to get another beer or food from the fridge and it also allows a build up of anticipation of possible play calls made by both NFL Coaches.

An NFL Football Game is not just about the plays and players as it is a highly technical game where strategy can sometimes win over tactics.

The MENTAL aspect of the game is something American's are well aware of and this is something that European's in general are not used to as a Soccer Game is continuous till the half.

AboveAlpha

 

I will tell you what is both funny and awesome....there is a Moscow Patriots American Football Team!!!

These Russian's were New England Patriots Fan's and they started an American Football League with their own Teams and a Super Bowl as well!!

The Moscow Patriots have a Team Logo that looks similar to the Patriots FLYING ELVIS as instead of a Minute Man the Moscow Patriots have a FIST ON FIRE on their Helmets that looks almost identical to the Patriots logo.

AboveAlpha

 

Playing American football is for sissies compared to Irish football--no padding or whining. Wrestling, and kick boxing--real wrestling and kick boxing are tough. No helmets, pads, mouth guards. Mano a Mano.

 

There are more Irish American's living in the Northeastern United States then there are living in Ireland!!!

And no....they would never survive getting through an NFL Football game.

We would be scraping them off the gridiron.

AboveAlpha

 

The problem is that these American Football [in EU we specify ...] Championships abroad have got tiny revenues ... in comparison with NFL.

What could be an interesting business is a London-based NFL team. London offers a quite interesting market for the oval ball and there are market researches saying that such a market could value around 100 millions GBP per year [about 130 millions US$, if I remember well the exchange rate].

http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/american-football/29813017

 

BTW, also in Italy there are American Football Championships. Male and female [IFL / CIFAF].

The problem here has been that after a great interest in the 80's, the Pay-per-view TV and the great sponsors have ignored American Football [like baseball, the only American sport which attracts sponsors here is basketball]. This have caused a deep decline of our Championship.

For the record, in Italy there are ...

Dolphins
Giants
Grizzlies
Marines
Seamen
Rhinos
Panthers
Lions
Warriors

 

I totally disagree. These 21st Century football players whine about every little injury they get. They have filed several law suits against the NFL because many of them end up with brain injuries from the many concussions they get; making them unable to function in their retirement years. Many of them couldn't function before their football years, but--oh well. I think I remember, a few years back, them whining about their padding not being good enough. They are sissies. I hate football, and I think the reason why so many Americans love it is because most Americans are lazy and stupid.