Football vs Football

[Earth]

OK I'll put it this way.

Soccer can be compared to Rice, American Football can be compared to a complex, fancy dinner you would find at some 5 star restraunt.

The thing is, rice is tasty to almost everyone, especially if you grew up eating it. Look at the people from the East and other parts of the world, they just love rice to death. In fact rice is probably the most popular food in the world. It's cheap, it tastes good, its easy to prepare, its a great food because of all of that. Just like soccer. Its cheap, its a decent game, its easy to follow and understand, and generally you don't need an aquired taste for it.

American football is like a complex dish of exotic food prepared at a 5 star restraunt. It's not cheap, its not easy to prepare, and if you didn't grow up eating it, aka watching American football from a young age, it takes an acquired taste, unlike rice, aka soccer.

In the end American football, the 5 star dish with exotic meats and spices can be and should be considered vastly superior to rice with some butter and sugar aka soccer.

HOWEVER, because American Football requires an acquired taste if you did not grow up eating (watching) it, it is understandable that people may prefer the inferior rice to it.

If you went to Japan right now you'd probably find that most people would prefer rice instead of other foods like pizza or Lasagna.

So thats the thing. Technically American football is superior to soccer in almost every way, but because its such a exotic,(complex rules, hard to just pick up and follow) expensive, (pads/field)"dish" thats hard to understand and requires an acquired taste, soccer remains much more popular.

Its still a bit shocking to me that soccer is winning this pole 44-12, but it really shouldn't because soccer can appeal to casual fans far more then American football can.

 

[Famine]

Technically American football is superior to soccer in almost every way

What ways?

but because its such a exotic,(complex rules, hard to just pick up and follow)

Football's offside rule is notoriously so hard to follow that 90% of fans don't even get it.

expensive, (pads/field)

Have you seen the prices of replica football kits that the fans buy? Never mind how much the boots and officially recognised balls cost.

All that's necessary to play a game of football is a ball (and some feet or prosthetic ones) and some space. All that's necessary to play a game of American Football is a ball and some space precisely marked in 1yd intervals..

Its still a bit shocking to me that soccer is winning this pole 44-12, but it really shouldn't because soccer can appeal to casual fans far more then American football can.

I'm a casual American Football fan. I've never been to a game, for instance.

 

[Earth]

What ways?

More ways to score, more positions with the widest array of athletes in all of sports, more ways to handle the ball.

More strategy. In a soccer game it is common for a head coach to spend most of the game pacing the sideline with his hands in his pockets, only stopping to make the occasional substitution. Whereas in American football you have 5+ coaches constantly reviewing film, making important calls (ex do you go for it on 4th and 1), alerting players to the opposing side's tactics by showing them photo copies of plays, etc etc. Its not uncommon for an American football team to have 10+ coaches.

Football's offside rule is notoriously so hard to follow that 90% of fans don't even get it.

Generally I have heard that most have trouble understanding American Football and its rules.

Every season I learn a few new rules. Like how a few years ago Devin Hester caught a kickoff with one foot inbounds and one foot out of bounds. This ruled the kick out of bounds and illegal so they started at the 40. Something like that in another game where I saw a player was laying down with half his body out of bounds and half inbounds. He touched the ball but did not have possesion of it. Opposing players grabbed the ball and were tackled. But the ball was ruled dead because he touched it (didn't need possession) while part of his body was out of bounds.

You can never know every rule there is in american football unless your a ref who studies the rule book.

Have you seen the prices of replica football kits that the fans buy? Never mind how much the boots and officially recognised balls cost.

All that's necessary to play a game of football is a ball (and some feet or prosthetic ones) and some space. All that's necessary to play a game of American Football is a ball and some space precisely marked in 1yd intervals..

The price comment is more referenced to the 3rd world, which makes up alot of soccer's fanbase. Brazil, Mexico, Africa, the Middle East.

You need pads to play true competition American football. It's impossible to play the sport in competition properly with no pads without risking serious injury. $50 for the cheaper helmets, $50 for shoulder pads. Lets just leave it at that, no thigh pads, knee pads or anything else. That's $100 per player. You need at least 11 players on each side. Most Highschool teams have what, 40-50 players on the squad? That's $5,000 of equipment. Lets say they play 11 players both ways. That's still $1100. Now when your dealing with the third world where $2 an hour is a great wage who is going to pay for poor school children to play the sport?

Favorite sports of 1st World Countries:

United States: American Football
Canada: Ice Hockey
Western Europe: Soccer
Australia: Australian Rules Football or rugby not sure
Japan: Baseball

And people want to make a big stink about how soccer is this end all sport that everyone in the world but America goes bannanas over. The world goes crazy over the world cup because its US vs THEM. I know people who hate sports who get caught up in it rooting for their own country.

Most of the 3rd world prefers cheap sports like soccer or cricket. notice cricket doesnt even require gloves, again cutting costs. Gloves are what, $30 a pop, thats alot of money in the 3rd world for most people.

As for the question of the poll again, American Football is the only sport I see as worth playing through videogames. The rest I find way too repetitive. Baseball is too controlled and linear, soccer and ice hockey have too much back and forth rat races, and too there is too much chance involved in videogame basketball.

 

[Famine]

More ways to score, more positions with the widest array of athletes in all of sports, more ways to handle the ball.

Why does "more ways to score" make it better?

Is the Le Man 24 hours worse than British Touring Cars, because you can score points for many top positions, pole position and constructors in BTCC, but only the Le Mans class winners (commonly just the overall winner) are remembered?

If ways to score makes a sport superior, Hurling is the best sport in the world.

More strategy. In a soccer game it is common for a head coach to spend most of the game pacing the sideline with his hands in his pockets, only stopping to make the occasional substitution. Whereas in American football you have 5+ coaches constantly reviewing film, making important calls (ex do you go for it on 4th and 1), alerting players to the opposing side's tactics by showing them photo copies of plays, etc etc. Its not uncommon for an American football team to have 10+ coaches.

More strategy that you're aware of.

Football managers and coaches don't have the luxury of film - they have to do everything on the fly. They can't pick a defensive team and an offensive team - they have to do everything with the 11 players they put out there (and three substitutes). Your strikers will often defend with your defenders often attacking (notably at corners) - even with goalkeepers coming up to join the attack on occasion. Of course this is quite similar to "go for it on 4th and 1" - push the keeper up and you've an extra body in the box, but if you lose possession, one well-placed kick can finish your game off.

Footballers get video and strategy guides to the opponents. Before the match - and in 15 minutes at half time. They must all think, all the time for the 45 minutes each side and everything is ad libbed.

Then there's formations. Do you go classic 4-4-2? 4-5-1? Christmas tree? 5-2-3? 5-3-2? 3-4-2 with a sweeper? Diamond? Ten behind the ball? 4 on 2? And it's all done on the fly.

Generally I have heard that most have trouble understanding American Football and its rules.

Every season I learn a few new rules.

There was a goal ruled out at the FIFA World Cup for offside. 99% of actual football fans - rather than casual ones - who know the offside rule disagreed with the decision, even though it was the correct one.

Offside is a classic of football's impenetrability. There are others - for example, I've not seen a legal kick-off in 5 years or more.

The price comment is more referenced to the 3rd world, which makes up alot of soccer's fanbase. Brazil, Mexico, Africa, the Middle East.

You need pads to play true competition American football. It's impossible to play the sport in competition properly with no pads without risking serious injury. $50 for the cheaper helmets, $50 for shoulder pads. Lets just leave it at that, no thigh pads, knee pads or anything else. That's $100 per player. You need at least 11 players on each side. Most Highschool teams have what, 40-50 players on the squad? That's $5,000 of equipment. Lets say they play 11 players both ways. That's still $1100. Now when your dealing with the third world where $2 an hour is a great wage who is going to pay for poor school children to play the sport?

All you need to play any football match is a ball and a couple of goals - though kids in the park would put two jumpers (sweaters) down about the right distance apart and that'd do.

All that's required to play American Football is a ball, the correct goalposts (how will you get a field goal/extra point without the right height and width posts?) and a field marked in 1yd intervals (how will you "go for it on 4th and 1" when you don't know where "1" is?).

That's what you need. Nothing else is regulated - it's all optional. Though I doubt an NFL player would ever get away without wearing a helmet...

And people want to make a big stink about how soccer is this end all sport that everyone in the world but America goes bannanas over. The world goes crazy over the world cup because its US vs THEM. I know people who hate sports who get caught up in it rooting for their own country.

And the same cannot be said for American Football. When was the last international American Football tournament?

Most of the 3rd world prefers cheap sports like soccer or cricket.

I don't get why this is a bad thing. What's wrong with sports people can just... play? Why does it have to cost a crapload of money to participate in to be awesome?

India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Kenya play cricket because... well... we were in charge for a while and brought the sport to them. Same for Australia (incidentally, cricket, football, Aussie Rules football, rugby league, rugby union and hockey are Australia's top sports - they just won the hockey Champions Trophy. Again).

Incidentally, cricket requires bats. Bats aren't cheap.

 

[Joel]

Just FYI, the #1 sport by participation in Canada is Soccer. Hockey might be the stereotype, but it isn't the truth.