Why American Football Lost

⏱ Timestamps
00:00 How the NFL Failed in Europe
01:00 The Origins of European “Football”
03:48 The Real Thing & Ze Germans
05:35 Lessons to Learn

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Athletic Interest is a video essay series that investigates business stories from the world of sports.

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[2] ‘Tom Brady leads Buccaneers to victory in Munich: 'One of the great football experiences I've ever had’’ (Jeremy Bergman),

[3] ‘Why the NFL Offseason Is the Longest Drought on the Sports Calendar’ (Brandon Alisoglu)

[4] ‘Origins of the WLAF’ (Tod Maher)

[5] ‘Europe Takes to WLAF, but Will It Catch On Here?’ (Chris Dufresne)

[6] ‘Football; It’s Baaack! World League Set to Begin Second Season’ (Gerald Eskenazi)

[7] ‘Football: Notebook; Initials For W.L.A.F. May Soon Be R.I.P’ (Timothy W. Smith)

[8] ‘Why The NFL Hasn’t Won Over Europe… Yet (Cheddar)

[9] ‘NFL folds Europe league, to focus on regular-season games abroad’ (AP via ESPN.com)

[10] ‘NFL: Why did NFL Europe fail?’ (Ross Bennellick)

[12] ‘History of NFL international games’ (Max Molski)

[13] ‘The Hell of a Party: The NFL Returns to the Raucous German Fan Base It Left Behind’ (Rodger Sherman)

[14] ‘Turnen And Sport’, Annette R Hofmann (ED.), part IV, ‘American Football in West Germany: Cultural Transformation, Adaption, and Resistance’ (Lars Dzikus)

[15] ‘NFL could have sold ‘over three million’ Munich tickets’ (Kalinka Mehta)

[16] ‘TV study shows: American Football ranks second in popularity in Germany after first season’ (European League of Football)

[17] ‘NFL makes strong push for flag football with eye on Olympics’ (AP via NFL.com)

[18] ‘New program is opening doors for international NFL hopefuls’ (ESPN.com)

[19] ‘Munich to host first-ever regular-season NFL game in Germany during 2022 season; Frankfurt also to host future games’ (Around the NFL Staff)

[20] ‘NFL could have two London franchises, says Roger Goodell’ (Ed Dixion)

#football #nfl #superbowl

[tumeric]

American Football will definitely become more popular than baseball, maybe even basketball but it will never overtake football

[ElBayadKhalil]

For me the biggest problem about watching NFL is the commericals.

[SpiritmanProductions]

Culturally in England, football goes way, way deeper than American Football ever could. Nothing about the sport itself, or the cheerleaders, or the commercials every 6 minutes, can ever compete with the tribal rivalry of football. It's not just a spectacle, it's a way of life.

[vassilisxerikos]

The main issue of American football is that it clashes with association football for a similar niche. Both played outdoors in massive pitches with lots of players. Asking NFL to overtake Champions League in Europe is like asking for Cricket to overtake MLB in USA. Ain’t gonna happen.

[nspill]

I think a part of the issue is that two sports are called Football. The name affects how it’s marketed.

[Spacenugget]

NFL’s biggest issue for overseas viewers is that it is a quintessentially American sport, with all the trappings (myriad ads, stoppages etc) that come with it. These are antithetical to the mindset of most of the rest of the worlds when it comes to entertainment and sporting culture.

[mcpxl]

I think i speak for 99.9% of those outside of the USA. We dont want american football

[Oli-Johnson]

A child can watch a football game, get inspired and go outside on their own and practice skills or shots. Even in the poorest places of the world where they might not be able to buy a football, they can make one out of something. You can play it with one friend or 30. Any two items are enough to mark out a goal. No other sport is as accessible as football.

[ogisrb]

American football will never overtake football, football has become a part of culture in a lot of country it is also simple and doesn't require anything but the ball to play it, ultimately it's simplicity makes spectating so much more exciting especially when somebody scores since in football you can see only a couple of goals a game there is always anticipation for that legendary moment that feels like its changing history and creating miracles

[MaguireGOATEver]

I'm from Germany and I've never met anyone that likes American football... We all love Football/soccer

[ow_oso]

I love American football and Futbol but I don’t see it ever getting that big outside of the US. Looking at it from a birds eye view it’s no surprise Futbol is as big as it is. You don’t need a rule book or have it explained to you that the goal of the game is to get the ball in the net using your feet. It’s accessible and easy to understand at face value. Combine it with the fact that damn near every major country in the world has its own league and you get why it’s the biggest sport of all time.

[Sal.K--BC]

As a Canadian, I prefer Rugby over American Football. I would love to see a big rugby league in North America.

[siddey]

⚽ is too big to overcome my friend. Football ⚽ is just different here, The raw emotion we carry for 90+ minutes on the field can't be overcome with any other sports.

Edit- Thanks for the support in Likes but let's not fight each other 🙏🏼

[lajc]

Football is life in south America, africa, europe and Asia. NFL will never overthrow football

[ouicertes]

There are major differences between europe and american sport culture
- franchise VS clubs. Clubs are integral part of the city, they can not be moved. Some clubs are majority owned by the fans. The rich owner of the clubs don't involve themselves into the competition or speak to media.
- Clubs develop players from a young age, there are specific cultures associated with clubs. The "draft" is absolutely an american thing, it sounds like the military, very weird.
- Youngs don't play for their highschool but for a club or a youth academy, they are not "stars" amongst highschoolers, they get professional experience early and start with better players to earn their place.
- Rivalries between clubs are very entranched, the fans absolutely love their local team even if they suck, it's the pride of where you come from/live.
- Tier leagues and relegation. The best league only features the best teams, and if your team suck, you get relegated into a lesser league until you get better and climb up. Football tried to make a superleague, american style, where they are guaranteed a spot, and it didn't go well with the fans. There is pride involved, how can ou say your team is better if you don't prove it against lesser teams. Also, it happens that semipro teams can climb up into the best league and win, absolutely legendary storytelling.
Also secondary league help develop young players, if they are good they get signed into better teams.
- Tanking. Absolute shame for sports. Why is losing matches rewarded?

[_Wombat]

It is interesting to watch Americans grapple with the realization that for once, their world view that the USA is always the biggest and the bestest, is not true.
I actually think the more interesting question here is whether "soccer" can make a dent in America. With Messi now in the MLS, and the next World Cup in the US, I genuinely think proper football could start to make a name for itself in the USA.
Imagine a US national team that could actually compete at a World Cup, that would be awesome.

[diegoalbues]

I'm Brazilian and like (almost) all Brazilians, I love football, real football (my second favorite sport is volleyball).
And I think there are reasons why football (which Americans call soccer) is the most popular sport on Earth, while American Football is popular only in the US.
1 - Anyone can practice soccer (tall, short, thin, strong, rich, poor, men, women), anytime and anywhere, and you don't need a lot of equipment to play, in many poor places in the world ( in which, I also did this a lot as a child), the children play soccer using their sandals or building blocks as a goalpost .
While to play American Football, it will be necessary to obtain those "armors" that look like medieval ones, and the player has to be very strong, and preferably very tall (as well as other sports, such as volleyball and basketball).

2 - Low scoring and tied games: Americans dislike (Americans like very high scoring sports) and don't understand low scoring and tied football.
Low scoring is one of the reasons football is so exciting, as each goal that occurs can drastically change the outcome of the match.
Imagine a situation where the match is tied at 1-1. Certainly the fans of these teams are tense, because their team can score one more goal and win the match; suffer a goal and lose the game or there is still the third possibility of the match ending with a 1-1 draw.
And this is the differential of football, while the other sports each team has only two possibilities of result (victory or defeat) in soccer there are three possibilities (victory, defeat and draw)

3 - In American football (read NFL) and other American sports leagues, there is no promotion/relegation system, and for the rest of the world, it's boring, you go decades and decades against the same opponents, and the franchises that are at the bottom of the table, they start losing on purpose to receive the best players from the Drafts, contrary to what happens in football leagues (and depending on the country this system also occurs in basketball, volleyball, handball and so on) around the world, where clubs fight fiercely to stay in the First Division, and every year, EVERY YEAR, there is an exchange of first division clubs with second division clubs.

4 - In the US, there are sports franchises.
In the rest of the world (mainly in football) there are sports clubs.
Which makes football fans feel very identified with a club in their city, unlike the American leagues where the franchise can simply flee the city, if that city is no longer profitable for the owner of the franchise.

5 - Football is an easy game to understand: 11 players for each team, and the objective is to make the ball enter the opponent's net (of course, this must be done with feet, because only the goalkeeper can use his hands on the matches).
Sports such as American Football and Baseball are very complicated to understand if you are not American (although baseball has some popularity in Japan in some Latin American countries such as Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, ironically countries that currently have a troubled relationship with the US).

I've seen Americans wanting to compare NFL, with the UEFA Champions League, or even the FIFA World Cup (tournaments of the most popular sport on the planet).
I believe that American megalomania makes us forget that the Champions League is not a tournament for just one country, but for an entire continent, while the World Cup is a tournament involving 32 national teams (now it will be 48) and more than 200 countries in the world, and billions of people in the world watch these tournaments (and other national and continental football championships, clubs and national teams like, Copa Libertadores, Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Euro Championship, Copa America, AFC Champions League, Europa League among thousands of other football competitions around the world), unlike the NFL / Super Bowl, which only has media appeal in the USA itself.

[OMIMreacts]

The reason why football (and to an extent basketball) is so popular is because it is so easy and self explanatory to play yourself. You can play it with just one friend and a ball, that's it. Kids love playing it and they don't need anyone explaining the rules. Barrier of entry is super low, and when youve played it yourself you're more likely to watch it as well

[seastar-qwqg]

Went to watch superbowl for the first time ever. Saw the time was 4 hrs and it was already midnight in my country. Sighed and changed channel to put on 1hr 30 mins of premier league match. I felt good that night.

[bertugali]

No marketing is enough to overtake football when every single European kid goes out to play football from sunrise to sunset, then gets yelled at by his mother for sweating so much but does it again tomorrow.