On Football vs. American Football (gridiron) - Part 1

I’ve just come across a news story on Yahoo titled, “Grads in pads: First U.S. national football team prepares for trip to Japan”. I’ve linked to the article for your reading pleasure – I for one, did not even begin to devote my time to it. Good on 'em for trying to export gridiron to different parts of the world, but for crying out loud, we’ve had a men's national football team since 1885 and played our first sanctioned match against Sweden in 1916. The US placed 3rd in the 1930 World Cup (albeit a sparsely attended tournament at the time). There is an international game of football already and the US is heavily involved – sheesh. My thoughts on the exportation of gridiron to the rest of the world is summed up as follows: it will not happen. By way of anecdote, the NFL tried an exhibition game with the Dallas Cowboys and someone else in Sydney, Australia and most of the audience left at half time. The people I talked to were bored to tears.

I think the stop/start nature of the game kills it. The rest of the world is quite used to the flow of football and rugby - whereas gridiron has so many rules, roles, special teams within teams, coaches, assistant coaches, special teams coaches, stops, breaks, huddles, conferences, warnings, 2 minute breaks, quarters, half time spectaculars, etc. All of which equals a big "huh?" for most people.